other experiments

[Jim Reid]

>>>>> "Jay" == Quadri, Jay <Jay.Quadri at gmk.cwplc.com> writes:

    Jay> Sorry, I'll rephrase the question: If my NS server (NS0) was
    Jay> acting as a slave to several external zones, if I queried one
    Jay> of these external zones host, and I have NS0 set as my only
    Jay> resolver, will I resolve the external name directly (GOTO) or
    Jay> will NS0 seek help from the hint file (climb up the tree so
    Jay> to speak) assuming it wasn't cached.

Your rephrased question is naive: you are using technical terms
without really knowing what they mean. When a name server gets a
query, it usually answers that query, policy decisions on who's
allowed to query for what permitting. If the name server already knows
the answer, it can just reply with that answer without performing
lookups to resolve the answer. i.e. The answer comes from the server's
cache. In BIND, that cache could have been filled with answers from
earlier queries that the server has made. It could also be filled with
resource records that have been loaded from a zone file becase the
server was configured as a master or slave server for some zone. So if
you query any name server for a name in the example.com zone and that
server knows about the zone - say it's master or server - it can
answer that query without needing to consult another server. BTW, BIND
name servers also cache negative answers - "the name you asked for
does not exist" - but that's another story.

The hints file for the root zone is used at start up. When the server
starts, it queries the name servers listed in that file to find out
about the actual names and addresses of the root servers. Once a name
server knows that, it can (theoretically) resolve the whole name space.
It then has no further use for the hits file for "." until the next
time the server is restarted => reinitialised.