our server (solaris, bind v 8.1.2) is suppose to be the authoritive or the master and our isp's server is suppose be the secondary. i've created a reverse lookup zone file and added an entry for it in my named.conf file. i've restarted the dns daemon and i don't have any errors in var/adm/messages, it says it's ready to answer queries. i tested it using network-tools site and it fails to do the reverse lookup. it says that there's no host name associated with the ip address or reverse lookup is not enabled. i'm thinking that i need to send a request for a zone transfer to our isp. i've done that a couple of days ago now and the reverse lookup still fails. what am i missing here? does my isp need to do something on their end? other than the zone transfer. is there another file besides the forward lookup, reverse lookup, named.local, and named.conf? i'm using O'Reilly's DNS and Bind book as my guide.

Need more information - when dealing with DNS, information such as IP and host/domain names are needed.

If you are still having problems with mobot.org, then from what I can see, reverse lookup is not having a problem (although the answer may not be coming from where you want it to come from).

From a nslookup:
> set type=ptr
> 208.46.83.49
Server: myserver.mydomain.com
Address: 10.140.2.2

49.83.46.208.in-addr.arpa name=www.mobot.org
83.46.208.in-addr.arpa nameserver=sv1-ans-01.inet.qwest.net
83.46.208.in-addr.arpa nameserver=dca-ans-01.inet.qwest.net
>

> set type=any
>208.46.83.49
Server: myserver.mydomain.com
Address: 10.140.2.2

***myserver.mydomain.com can't find 208.46.83.49: Nonexistent host/domain

> www.mobot.org
Server: myserver.mydomain.com
Address: 10.140.2.2

www.mobot.org internet address =208.46.83.49
www.mobot.org preference=0, mail exchanger=webmail.mobot.org
mobot.org nameserver=svl-ans-01.inet.qwest.net
mobot.org nameserver=gatekeeper.mobot.org
mobot.org nameserver=dca-ans-01.inet.qwest.net
webmail.mobot.org internet address=4.36.133.74
svl-ans-01.inet.qwest.net internet address=205.171.14.195
gatekeeper.mobot.org internet address=208.46.83.62
dca-ans-01.inet.qwest.net internet address=205.171.9.242
>


But I've found this to be an intermittent problem - and once my servers have it cached, I can't test as easily (can't bring down my DNS to assist).