Testing Your Installation

Check your syslog file for error messages.

See Solaris Naming Administration Guide for common DNS error messages and troubleshooting information.

Look up a host name in the local domain with nslookup.

dnsmaster% nslookup altair
Server:  dnsmaster.doc.com
Address: 192.146.168.5
Name:  altair.doc.com
Address: 192.146.168.10

• If you get a successful result, your name server is probably functioning correctly.

• If you get a "Can't find," or "can't initialize address," type of message for your server, or a "Non-existent domain," type message, it may mean that your server is not correctly listed in the boot or hosts files.

• If you get a "can't find name" or "Non-existent domain" type of message, it may mean that the host you looked up is not in the server's hosts file, or the domain is incorrectly set in resolv.conf, or there is some other server problem.

Look up a remote domain name with nslookup.

If your network is connected to the Internet, look up the name of a remote domain. (If your network is not connected to the Internet, look up the name of a subdomain in another zone, if you have one.) For example, to look up the name of the remote internic.net Internet domain, you would enter:

dnsmaster% nslookup internic.net
Server:  dnsmaster.doc.com  
Address: 192.146.168.  
Name:  internic.net 
Addresses: 198.41.0.9,  198.41.0.6,  198.41.0.5,  198.41.0.8

• If you get a successful result, your name server is probably functioning correctly.

• If the above command does not find the remote domain name, one possible cause is that your network's connection to the Internet is not functioning properly.

• Another possible cause is that your named.ca file is not properly installed or set up.

(The second time you use nslookup to find a domain, your answer will be returned as "non-authoritative". This is normal because the answer is now coming from your cache, not the remote name server.)

Look up a host name in your domain from a remote domain.

If your network is connected to the Internet, look up the name of a host in your domain from a remote domain. (If your network is not connected to the Internet, look up the name of a host in your domain from another zone, if you have one.)

For example, to look up the name of host in your domain from a remote Internet domain, you would enter two arguments after the nslookup command: First the name of the host you are searching for, and second, the name of the name server you are testing:

remotemachine9% nslookup altair remotemaster.foo.org.
Server:  remotemaster.foo.org
Address: 123.231.12.22
Name:  altair.doc.com
Addresses: 111.22.3.4 

• If you get a successful result, your name server is probably functioning correctly.

• If the above command does not find the machine you are searching for, one possible cause is that your domain is not properly registered with whomever is administering the parent domain (.com in the above example).