[TriLUG] forward zones

[Scott Lundgren]

I added a third box to my home network and decided to setup a name server
for them all. Can someone explain to me if the following is a difference in
how I was expecting a config tool to work or a gap in my understanding of
DNS

Using RH9, redhat-config-bind I first created a reverse zone
"1.168.192.in-addr.arpa"
Then I added records for:
	192.168.1.1		athos
	192.168.1.2		porthos
	192.168.1.3		dartagnan

My thinking was that I would then do the same but backwards to create the
forward zone. However I found that if I tried to add records to the only
forward zone, localhost (athos's localhost is acting as the nameserver), the
only records I could were to <blank>.localhost (which I thought would have
been subdomains to localhost). Instead I added 3 new Forward Master Zone
records, one for each box. Everything works, each box can ping & nmap each
other box by IP & hostname since all 3 use athos for a gateway & nameserver.
So are forward zones created per machine than per network segement like
reverse zones ? Or is something seemingly working but probably isn't?

- SL