I need help properly configuring TinyDNS within pfSense

[Inosedia]

My experience with networking is beginner-intermediate level, so there is quite a bit that is over my head here.

We have internal dev servers that have fixed ips with hostnames like 'internal.paul' or 'internal.suzy' things that don't have real tlds so that they won't be mistaken for external machines.

They all run virtualmin so virtualhosts kind of bind their own hostname properly. Meaning if I could make a request for 'bam.internal.suzy' it would in general work as the virtualmin server would look up it's own data and then pull up the right site for that server.

However on an internal network we are pretty much accessing these servers by typing their static ip 192.168.1.55 (and port number to get around not being able to resolve by using the hostname)

So the goal is to map bam.internal.suzy to 192.168.1.55

(Note I can do it on individual computers by modifying their host files)

After reading up a bit I first attempted to use the DNS Forwarder with little to no real success.

After installing TinyDNS I could resolve things like internal.suzy, but not bam.internal.suzy, however I found that the whole internet was 30 seconds slower than normal.

I found this link: https://forum.pfsense.org/index.php?topic=66403.0
and set up my box like the last poster did, and now the internet speed is back to normal, however I'm unable to resolve internal.suzy to anywhere at all.

My changes thus far are as follows:

System -> General Setup

Moved our isp dns servers down one slot and added 192.168.1.1 (the pfsense router basically) into the top slot.
Checked: Allow DNS server list to be overridden by DHCP/PPP on WAN

Services -> DNS Forwarder

Disabled DNS Forwarder

Services -> DNS Server

Binding IP: 127.0.0.1
Enabled recursive DNS responder
Interface to listen: LAN, WAN, loopback
Respond to IP: {Blank}
And that's it.

In my records I have

bam.internal.suzy       SOA  192.168.1.55
internal.suzy           SOA  192.168.1.55
www.bam.internal.suzy   A    192.168.1.55
bam.internal.suzy       A    192.168.1.55
www.internal.suzy       A    192.168.1.55
internal.suzy           A    192.168.1.55

Obviously I'm missing something important here, that I don't have enough knowledge about. Anybody able to shed some light.

[Inosedia]

I had to turn the dns server off as it was crippling the internet speed dramatically.

I still would like to get this properly set up but so far no luck.