Must I have "." zone?

[Barry Margolin]

In article <492488423.932764276214.JavaMail.qtran at hutch.East.Sun.COM>,
 <Christine.Tran at East.Sun.COM> wrote:
>        Q1) Must I have a "." zone and a hint file even when I don't use it?
>           If yes, can I put any fool thing in the hint file?

Yes and yes.  You should put "forward only;" in the options section to
prevent your server from ever trying to contact the root servers.

>        Q2) I am reading DNS&BInd 3rd.Ed p 387 about Internal Roots and I
>        don't have a large name space, nor lots of internal name servers, nor
>        are they geographically distributed.  I don't want to create internal
>        roots.  Why won't my forward pb.com statement work without them?

You only forward for zones you're not authoritative for.  If you configure
yourself as a root server, then you're authoritative for everything that
you don't explicitly delegate away, so you won't forwad.

-- 
Barry Margolin, barmar at bbnplanet.com
GTE Internetworking, Powered by BBN, Burlington, MA
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