Andy Green: >> Why not try running your own DNS lookups, it's pretty easy with Fedora. >> >> yum install bind caching-nameserver >> echo "nameserver 127.0.0.1" >/etc/resolv.conf There may be other things in the resolv.conf files that ought to remain there, that line will wipe them out. Also, the resolv.conf file may get changed by dynamic network scripting. Robin Laing: > I tried this with no success. > > Is there a need to make local zone files specific to local domain? I > have read that some setups require a local.zone file with the local > domain name. You only have to add zone records if you want your name server to respond to those queries. You can continue to use your hosts file for local machine names, if you want. What do you get for dig queries to the local name server? e.g. dig google.com @localhost You should see something like this come back: ; <<>> DiG 9.3.4 <<>> google.com @localhost ; (2 servers found) ;; global options: printcmd ;; Got answer: ;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 23421 ;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 3, AUTHORITY: 4, ADDITIONAL: 0 ;; QUESTION SECTION: ;google.com. IN A ;; ANSWER SECTION: google.com. 300 IN A 64.233.167.99 google.com. 300 IN A 64.233.187.99 google.com. 300 IN A 72.14.207.99 ;; AUTHORITY SECTION: google.com. 345600 IN NS ns1.google.com. google.com. 345600 IN NS ns2.google.com. google.com. 345600 IN NS ns3.google.com. google.com. 345600 IN NS ns4.google.com. ;; Query time: 1160 msec ;; SERVER: 127.0.0.1#53(127.0.0.1) ;; WHEN: Wed Mar 21 08:37:56 2007 ;; MSG SIZE rcvd: 148 -- (This box runs FC6, my others run FC4 & FC5, in case that's important to the thread.) Don't send private replies to my address, the mailbox is ignored. I read messages from the public lists.