“I’m pretty new to setting up a Domain Name System (DNS). To
avoid using third-party hosting facilities, I decided to grab a
copy of Red Hat Linux 6.0 and set up two DNS servers for myself.
Everything went pretty well. I can look up names and have my DNS
domain database files all set up and running. Unfortunately, I keep
getting e-mails from other people saying my secondary server is
“lame.” I also see messages in my logs suggesting that some other
servers on the Internet are lame as well. Is this just a joke, or
are these error messages for real?”
” Lame servers are common, and seeing error messages about them
is a usual ordeal for any DNS administrator. Although there are
plenty of poor servers, the message about lame delegation is
referring to a real problem, especially if you are getting e-mail
messages saying that your secondary server is lame.”
“A lame server, in DNS terms, really means that the domain
database files have an NS entry for the server, but that particular
server doesn’t think it is an authoritative server for the domain
in question. This can be caused by a number of problems. The
simplest is that the server has no entry in the named.boot file
stating that it should be a primary or secondary name server for
the domain in question. More commonly, however, there is probably a
trailing period missing from the end of an entry in the domain
file. This causes the name server to reject the domain file and not
serve DNS for it. Other kinds of typos in the database file can
also cause this sort of problem.”