IN_ADDR-ARPA zone not working on second server

[SLaw]

Hi,

We're testing a config in a test lab before rolling it out. We have a
primary server and a second backup server. Our plan is to have DNS on both
and DHCP ready on the second if the first fails.

We're testing procedures if the primary server fails altogether and
everything is bought up on the secondary one. Everything works now on the
secondary server, including DDNS, after we change the server assignments on
the DHCP subnets and change the Designated Primary on the DNS domain to be
the second server.

However we can't get reverse lookup to work on the IN-ADDR.ARPA zone,
although it worked fine withe the first server config.

Details:
The IN-ADDR.ARPA zone is called 31.10.IN-ADDR.ARPA. The servers addresses on
the isolated network are 10.31.1.90 (primary server which is down) and
10.31.1.92 (secondary server running DHCP and DNS). The IN-ADDR zone is
primary with both servers as Authoritative. We changed the DDNS server for
the IN-ADDR zone to be the second server. In the IN-ADDR zone's SOA details
the second server has been set as the Zone Master. The email address is
root.31.10.IN-ADDR.ARPA. All modules reloaded on the server.

The DHCP subnet options/other options has both servers IP addresses defined
for dns, although the 'down' server islisted first. And when we try an
nslookup from either the workstation or the secondary server it gives an
error saying:

(Secondary server error looking up 10.31.1.90):
"90.1.31.10.IN-ADDR.ARPA query failed. DNS request timeout. Default DNS
server name cannot be resolved."

(Workstn looking up 10.31.1.90):
"DNS request timeout. Default servers are not available"

We can make the secondary server reverse lookup work by changing the
resolv.cfg so the secondary server's NAMESERVER entry is listed FIRST, but
this isn't a fix: we can't change all servers and reinitialize system on the
fly. And we still have no fix for the workstations.

Any help gratefully (nay desperately) received,

Steve Law

[Brad Doster]

First thing to check is that you have both A and PTR records for both
DNS servers. If yes to that, next guess would be to add the first
(down) DNS server to the second server's sys:etc\hosts file -- at least
it seems that should take care of the "Default DNS server name cannot
be resolved." error message.

Also, for additional clues, check the NAMED log files -- on NW 6.5 see
the command line options for NAMED; below 6.5 use DBGLOG.EXE to record
NAMED -V output to a file.

bd
NSC Volunteer SysOp
www.InsightNetSolutions.net