Bind not forwarding on CentOS 6

Question

I have bind configured (sort of) on CentOS 6 as a forward-only DNS server, like so:

options {
    listen-on port 53 { 127.0.0.1; };
    directory "/var/named";
    recursion yes;
    allow-recursion { localhost; };
    forward only;
    forwarders { 8.8.8.8; 8.8.4.4; };
};

include "/etc/named.rfc1912.zones";

The problem is, that it seems it's not doing any forwarding:

$ dig www.google.com

; <<>> DiG 9.7.3-P3-RedHat-9.7.3-8.P3.el6_2.2 <<>> www.google.com
;; global options: +cmd
;; Got answer:
;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: SERVFAIL, id: 1037
;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 0, AUTHORITY: 0, ADDITIONAL: 0

;; QUESTION SECTION:
;www.google.com.                    IN      A

;; Query time: 555 msec
;; SERVER: 127.0.0.1#53(127.0.0.1)
;; WHEN: Fri Jan 27 13:30:52 2012
;; MSG SIZE  rcvd: 32

I do not have bind-chroot installed on this server. I can confirm that my resolv.conf file is configured to use 127.0.0.1 for DNS lookups. If I do dig @8.8.8.8 www.google.com then I get a correct response.

If I remove the forwarding statements and add the hint zone for the root servers, then it does correctly resolve names, but of course I don't want to be hitting the root servers for every lookup. Any suggestions?

Solution

I would suggest to add, beside localhost, the IP address of the machine itself:

allow-recursion {127.0.0.1; 192.168.1.1;}

Of course, you need to replace 192.168.1.1 with the real IP address you are using.

Comments

[James O'Gorman]

Try running dig +trace to confirm named is working correctly.