dnscache tinydns

I would like to run by my set-up to see if there is any obvious mistakes or flaws in my understanding of dns and djbdns(or networking in general):

My setup(typical, i think):

Gateway: Multihomed freebsd box with static ip from isp 11.22.33.44 and running natd to internal network 192.168.1.1 I also would run tinydns on the machine to host my domain name

internal freebsd machine: 192.168.1.11 would run dnscache for the other internal machines to use.
/etc/resolv.conf would just point to itself?

another internal freebsd machine: 192.168.1.12: work machine, /etc/resolv.conf would point to 192.168.1.11

internal win2000: 192.168.1.101 wife's laptop, in
tcp/ip settings nameserver would point to 192.168.1.11


Apologies if this type of question has been answered many times(i did do a quick search). Thank you for your time.

Bill

You need two DNS servers to provide authorative data for a domain name. Your IP from the ISP can run one of the servers, but you need a secondary server somewhere else. Some places do free secondary DNS - check google for this.


/etc/resolv.conf would need to point to your ISP's name servers, else it isn't going to be able to resolve any names to cache.

Everything else looks fine.

No problem got the secondary server hosted by a friend.

Why do I need to use my isp's dns servers?

Wouldn't my dns cache know about the root servers, query them and then cache the information as it comes?

Thanks for your time, btw you need to update your website :-)

Bill

>> /etc/resolv.conf would need to point to your ISP's name servers, else it isn't going to be able to resolve any names to cache.

Heck no, you CAN point it to yourself. I run dnscache just fine on my openbsd box at 192.168.1.80 and that is the only entry on my /etc/resolv.conf. It works just fine.

bnorton916 -- My setup is similar to what you described, and it works just fine. The only thing to note is that you have to set up dnscache to respond to the other IPs (or do what I did and make it respond to all IPs in 192.168.1 range). If you don't do this, dnscache won't respond to lookup requests.

OK, so I _can_ set-up dnscache to answer queries for all my computers.

I am just using hosts file for 192.168.1 queries.

Just making sure I understood my comment.

btw: To any one else reading this I found tinydns/dnscache much much easier to understand than BIND.

Same here. I asked if there were any better solutions, and the DJBDNS package works well (it used tinyDNS/dnscache.

I ran into a similar problem since I only have 1 IP, so I have my register's service as secondary for the domain, which is register.com. Seems to work just fine now.