Can someone explain forwarders and why I don't need them?

[Joseph S D Yao]

On Wed, Jul 30, 2003 at 11:43:32PM +0100, Alex Hulse wrote:
> Joseph S D Yao wrote:
> 
> Firstly, thanks to you all for providing such detailed answers and for 
> pointing out the (obvious and stupidly-forgotten-by-me) root server system.

Not at all.

> So would I best best leaving my main server without a forwarder? Does 

Absolutely, if it is on the public Internet with unencumbered access.
But didn't yo ualready answer that in your original post?

> this mean that everytime it needs a lookup it's going of half-way across 
> the internet to get an answer? ...

No!  Once you have looked up ".org" once, the list of ".org" servers
stays until it expires.  Same with "isc.org" and "www.isc.org".  As you
gather your set of most-often-used domains into your cache, the lookups
will come from cache and be very fast.

Besides, what's half-way across the Internet?  The max you can go is
roughly 12,000 miles in any direction [as the crow flies],and those
electrons are pretty fast.  ;-)

>			     ..? Or should I use a forwarder and point 
> them to my ISP's DNS servers? Or is there another way of achieving this one?

This is unlikely to be a good idea.

-- 
Joe Yao				jsdy at center.osis.gov - Joseph S. D. Yao
OSIS Center Systems Support					EMT-B
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