For those running their own nameservers ONLY!

If your like us, you are probably just about as fed up as us, seeing LAME SERVER appearing in your /var/log/messages file on a daily basis. I get hundreds of these message cluttering my logs daily so here is what you can do to remove their existance.

First, lame server as defined:

If you run a nameserver, you may see an error about a “lame server”. New administrators of DNS servers often ask what this is, what it means, and whether it’s a problem. There is no cause for concern. The lame server is one that is advertised to have authoritative information about a domain, but doesn’t. This can happen in a few different ways, but it’s usually not worth the trouble to track down the administrator of the other domain.

Let’s do it!

1) Ensim: Shutdown bind by either stopping the service from a command line while logged in to your box. You are using SSH2 aren’t you? Or, log into your appliance menu and stop Bind from the services menu. This is important so please do this first.

2) Next, while logged in as root:

# cd /etc/bind

Make a backup of this file by typing the following:

# cp options.conf.wp options.conf.wp.backup

3) Edit file options.conf.wp :

# pico -w options.conf.wp

and find the following lines of code:

// This file stores the options statment maintaned by Ensim

options {
directory “/var/named”;
listen-on { 127.0.0.1; xxx.xx.xxx.xxx; xxx.xx.xxx.xxx; };
};

In place of those x’s above you should see your DNS ips.

Make the file look like this:

// This file stores the options statment maintaned by Ensim

options {
directory “/var/named”;
listen-on { 127.0.0.1; xxx.xx.xxx.xxx; xxx.xx.xxx.xxx; };
};

logging {
category lame-servers { null; };
};

That’s it, Ctrl-x and save.

Now you can restart Bind. Do it preferably from the GUI so you can detect errors if you get any.

You have now done away with those annoying Lame server msgs.

Plesk: Find the config file for bind and add the 3 additional lines of code to the end of your file.
Repeat above steps.