Non-Internet named.ca File

If your network is not connected to the Internet, you create your own named.ca file. To do this, you designate one of your servers to be the root server, then create a named.ca file on every DNS server pointing to that root server.

For example, suppose your domain is named private and you designate the machine ourroot as your non-Internet root server. The ourroot machine has an IP address of 192.1.1.10. Your named.ca files would then contain the line:

ourroot.private.  999999  IN  A  192.1.1.10

Cache files also need an SOA record, NS records for each domain and subdomain, and A records for each server.

For example, suppose that in addition to ourroot you also had DNS name servers called ourmaster and ourslave. The named.ca files on all of your DNS servers would then look like the following.

Example 5-15 Sample named.ca File (Non-Internet)

;
@    IN    SOA  ourroot.private.   hermit.ourroot.private  (    
                 1997071401       ;  serial number (YYYYMMDD##)
                 10800            ;  refresh after 3 hours
                 3600             ;  retry after 1 hour
                 604800           ;  expire after 1 week
                 86400 )          ;  minimum TTL of 1 day
;
ourroot.private.      999999     IN    A    192.1.1.10
;
private.                         IN    NS   ourmaster.private.
1.1.192.in-addr.arpa             IN    NS   ourmaster.private.
 
ourprivate.private.              IN    A    192.1.1.1
;
private.                         IN    NS   ourslave.private.
1.1.192.in-addr.arpa             IN    NS   ourslave.private.
ourslave.private.            IN    A    192.1.1.2 

See for a more complete discussion of setting up a domain that is not connected to the Internet.

The hosts File

The hosts file contains all the data about the machines in the local zone. The name of this file is specified in the boot file. To avoid confusion with /etc/hosts, name the file something other than hosts, for example, you could name these files using the pattern db.domain. Using that nomenclature, the host files for the doc.com and sales.doc.com domains might be db.doc and db.sales.

Setting Up the hosts File

The hosts file contains all the data about every machine in your zone. If a zone covers more than one domain, all machines in all the domains covered by the zone are listed in the zone's host file. See "Setting Up the hosts File".

Note - The name hosts is a generic name indicating the file's purpose and content. But to avoid confusion with /etc/hosts, you should name this file something other than hosts. If you have more than one zone, each zone must have its own hosts file and each of these zone hosts files must have a unique name. For example, if your DNS domain is divided into doc.com and sales.doc.com zones, you could name one hosts file db.doc and the other sales.db.doc.

There must be a separate, uniquely named, hosts file for each zone. If you have more than one zone, each zone's host file must include information about the master (master and slave) servers of the other zones, as described in Example 5-16.

Example 5-16 Sample hosts File

;
; SOA rec
doc.com.  IN SOA sirius.doc.com. sysop.centauri.doc.com. (
                 1997071401       ;  serial number (YYYYMMDD##)
                      10800       ;  refresh every 3 hours
                      10800       ;  retry every 3 hours
                      604800      ;  expire after a week
                      86400 )     ;  TTL of 1 day
; Name Servers
doc.com.                   IN  NS  sirius.doc.com.
sales.doc.com.             IN  NS  altair.sales.doc.com.
; Addresses
localhost.                 IN  A  127.0.0.1
 
sirius                    IN  A  192.168.6.1
rigel                     IN  A  192.168.6.112
antares                   IN  A  192.168.6.90
polaris                   IN  A  192.168.6.101
procyon                   IN  A  192.168.6.79
tauceti                   IN  A  123.45.6.69
altair.sales.doc.com.     IN  A   111.22.3.4
; aliases
durvasa                   IN  CNAME sirius.doc.com.
dnsmastr                  IN  CNAME sirius.doc.com.
dnssales                  IN  CNAME altair.sales.doc.com.

A hosts file usually contains these elements:

• A Start of Authority (SOA) record

• One or more Name Server (NS) records identifying master and slave DNS name servers

• Address (A) records for each host in the zone

• Canonical Name (CNAME) records for each host alias in the zone

• One or more Mail Exchange (MX) records

The hosts.rev File

The hosts.rev file specifies a zone in the in-addr.arpa. domain, the special domain that allows reverse (address-to-name) mapping. The name of this file is specified in the boot file.

Setting Up the hosts.rev File

The hosts.rev file sets up inverse mapping.

Note - The name hosts.rev is a generic name indicating the file's purpose and content. If you have more than one zone, each zone must have its own hosts.rev file and each of these zone hosts.rev files must have a unique name. For example, if your DNS domain is divided into doc.com and sales.doc.com zones, you could name one hosts.rev file doc.rev and the other sales.rev.

Example 5-17 Sample hosts.rev File

; SOA rec
6.45.123.in-addr.arpa.  IN SOA sirius.doc.com. sysop.centauri.doc.com. (
                 1997071401       ;  serial number (YYYYMMDD##)
                      10800       ;  refresh every 3 hours
                      10800       ;  retry every 3 hours
                      604800      ;  expire after a week
                      86400 )     ;  TTL of 1 day
; Name Servers
6.45.123.in-addr.arpa.   IN  NS  sirius.doc.com.
1                        IN  PTR sirius.doc.com.

A hosts.rev file contains these elements:

• A Start of Authority (SOA) record

• One or more Name Server (NS) records identifying master and slave DNS name servers. Server names should be fully qualified.

• A PTR record for each host in the zone. Machine names should be fully qualified.

(See"Resource Record Types" for detailed descriptions of these resource record types.)