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Don't know about HP_UX but it's generally recommeded to have this in so you don't get surpises, after all, it's your loopback (local) host and you are authorative for it, none else, including root servers. You'll also need a:

IN PTR localhost.

in there as well.

NO. First, this PTR record belongs into the zone 0.0.127.in-addr.arpa (or 127.in-addr.arpa, whichever you prefer) for the address 127.0.0.1 . Second, it is strongly recommended (see BIND operations guide) not to let it point to the fake top level domain 'localhost.' but to some localhost.<my>.<dom>.<ain> . For the latter there should be an A-RR for the IP-address 127.0.0.1 .

Peter, Ok, ok - start again else confusion reigns, mabye I was not explicit and I also forgot the 1 above - the joys of cut and paste. One should run primary for 0.0.127.in-addr.arpa, thus in the named.boot file : primary 0.0.127.in-addr.arpa named.local Also a good idea is to stick this in: ; The following are to prevent really stupid queries from going past this server. ; The zero and broadcast stuff primary 0.IN-ADDR.ARPA null primary 255.IN-ADDR.ARPA broadcast and then in named.local file an SOA and an NS record - in my case same as the origin thus the @: @ IN SOA ecrc.de. hostmaster.ecrc.de. ( 1.3 ;Serial 28800 ;Refresh 7200 ;Retry 604800 ;Expire 86400 ) ;Minimum IN NS ecrc.de. 1 IN PTR localhost. Alternatively stick in instead of the @ line: 0.0.127.in-addr.arpa IN SOA whatever.tld - etc.... The null and broadcast files are essentially the same - only an SOA and an NS record are needed.

To answer the original question: Yes, you should have an entry localhost A 127.0.0.1 in your (forward) zone files. Note that the current origin will be appended to 'localhost' in the example, so you really will produce an entry like localhost.ucd.ie (if ucd.ie were this current origin) with this.

Regards, Peter

Ok - all true, and perhaps stick in these as well....... localhost. IN A 127.0.0.1 localhost IN A 127.0.0.1 loghost IN CNAME localhost. Well - it seems to work for me ? Dave