bind9 configuration problem

Question

I just set up a bind9 dns server on a linux machine in my local network, responsible for the "intern" zone. I have two problem left to be solved, however.

The first one is the output of dig -t a intern, which contains no answer section. This is obviously a simple little mistake in a named.conf.* file, but I am looking right through it and can't seem to find it.

The second one is the lookup of external domains happening very slowly. named.conf has a "hint" to a file of the root servers, as it should. but when doing a lookup (during ping or http request or whatever) this seems to always take a few seconds the first time, as if the dns server is waiting for a time-out, and then asking another dns server. Afterwards the dns server seems to cache the entry and lookups work instantly to that entry.

I don't know if I should mention it but the setup is obvious, router connected to the internet, and one of the PCs connected to the router is the internal dns server.

Should I be putting some kind of forward in the dns server's config file, telling it that the router has the addresses of the ISP's nameservers? I think this is the solution but I'm not sure how to do it.

Thanks guys

Answer 1

You put forwarders in options section:

options {
// ...
    forwarders {
        <your ISP DNS server> ;
    };
// ...
};