Query Forwarding in bind9 is not working

[bananosky]

Re: Do the bind9 webconfigurator screens generate zones files?

I came across this issue after I lost my both pfsense primary and secondary and restored them from backup. I have bind9 with master/slave configuration. After restoring both servers I realized my Master bind was not resolving external names (www.google.com etc), but the Slave was working fine. There was not a problem resolving local names (myname.local) on either server. I googled around and I found few people having the same issue, but not a real solution. After digging for a couple of days I found the problem. named.root file was empty in my Master server. I copied that file from my Slave and it fixed the problem. The location of the file is here:
/cf/named/etc/namedb/named.root

I have not idea how it happened, but it got to be something to do with the restore that I did

[miken32]

Nothing to do with restoring from backup, I had the same thing happen on a new install of the Bind package. Thanks for the tip. Here are the contents of the file if anyone needs them:

;       This file holds the information on root name servers needed to 
;       initialize cache of Internet domain name servers
;       (e.g. reference this file in the "cache  .  <file>"
;       configuration file of BIND domain name servers). 
; 
;       This file is made available by InterNIC 
;       under anonymous FTP as
;           file                /domain/named.cache 
;           on server           FTP.INTERNIC.NET
;       -OR-                    RS.INTERNIC.NET
; 
;       last update:     November 16, 2017 
;       related version of root zone:     2017111601
; 
; FORMERLY NS.INTERNIC.NET 
;
.                        3600000      NS    A.ROOT-SERVERS.NET.
A.ROOT-SERVERS.NET.      3600000      A     198.41.0.4
A.ROOT-SERVERS.NET.      3600000      AAAA  2001:503:ba3e::2:30
; 
; FORMERLY NS1.ISI.EDU 
;
.                        3600000      NS    B.ROOT-SERVERS.NET.
B.ROOT-SERVERS.NET.      3600000      A     199.9.14.201
B.ROOT-SERVERS.NET.      3600000      AAAA  2001:500:200::b
; 
; FORMERLY C.PSI.NET 
;
.                        3600000      NS    C.ROOT-SERVERS.NET.
C.ROOT-SERVERS.NET.      3600000      A     192.33.4.12
C.ROOT-SERVERS.NET.      3600000      AAAA  2001:500:2::c
; 
; FORMERLY TERP.UMD.EDU 
;
.                        3600000      NS    D.ROOT-SERVERS.NET.
D.ROOT-SERVERS.NET.      3600000      A     199.7.91.13
D.ROOT-SERVERS.NET.      3600000      AAAA  2001:500:2d::d
; 
; FORMERLY NS.NASA.GOV
;
.                        3600000      NS    E.ROOT-SERVERS.NET.
E.ROOT-SERVERS.NET.      3600000      A     192.203.230.10
E.ROOT-SERVERS.NET.      3600000      AAAA  2001:500:a8::e
; 
; FORMERLY NS.ISC.ORG
;
.                        3600000      NS    F.ROOT-SERVERS.NET.
F.ROOT-SERVERS.NET.      3600000      A     192.5.5.241
F.ROOT-SERVERS.NET.      3600000      AAAA  2001:500:2f::f
; 
; FORMERLY NS.NIC.DDN.MIL
;
.                        3600000      NS    G.ROOT-SERVERS.NET.
G.ROOT-SERVERS.NET.      3600000      A     192.112.36.4
G.ROOT-SERVERS.NET.      3600000      AAAA  2001:500:12::d0d
; 
; FORMERLY AOS.ARL.ARMY.MIL
;
.                        3600000      NS    H.ROOT-SERVERS.NET.
H.ROOT-SERVERS.NET.      3600000      A     198.97.190.53
H.ROOT-SERVERS.NET.      3600000      AAAA  2001:500:1::53
; 
; FORMERLY NIC.NORDU.NET
;
.                        3600000      NS    I.ROOT-SERVERS.NET.
I.ROOT-SERVERS.NET.      3600000      A     192.36.148.17
I.ROOT-SERVERS.NET.      3600000      AAAA  2001:7fe::53
; 
; OPERATED BY VERISIGN, INC.
;
.                        3600000      NS    J.ROOT-SERVERS.NET.
J.ROOT-SERVERS.NET.      3600000      A     192.58.128.30
J.ROOT-SERVERS.NET.      3600000      AAAA  2001:503:c27::2:30
; 
; OPERATED BY RIPE NCC
;
.                        3600000      NS    K.ROOT-SERVERS.NET.
K.ROOT-SERVERS.NET.      3600000      A     193.0.14.129
K.ROOT-SERVERS.NET.      3600000      AAAA  2001:7fd::1
; 
; OPERATED BY ICANN
;
.                        3600000      NS    L.ROOT-SERVERS.NET.
L.ROOT-SERVERS.NET.      3600000      A     199.7.83.42
L.ROOT-SERVERS.NET.      3600000      AAAA  2001:500:9f::42
; 
; OPERATED BY WIDE
;
.                        3600000      NS    M.ROOT-SERVERS.NET.
M.ROOT-SERVERS.NET.      3600000      A     202.12.27.33
M.ROOT-SERVERS.NET.      3600000      AAAA  2001:dc3::35
; End of file

[Jim Coogan]

@bananosky said in Query Forwarding in bind9 is not working:

/cf/named/etc/namedb/named.root

Very helpful. I had to populate /cf/named/etc/namedb/named.root on fresh bind install with this as well.

[Risfold]

Wow. Thank you to all here! In a fresh install of the bind package, I had the same issue. I populated named.root using the "Edit File" diagnostic tool and this was resolved.

I would only add that the file contents commented above by @miken32 is outdated (it may still work, and I haven't dug into if there are any differences). The location of the current version of the file is here: https://www.internic.net/domain/named.root I used the current version and it worked.

[Risfold]

Noted this issue in redmine bug tracker as well: https://redmine.pfsense.org/issues/10506