[MaraDNS list] How to get MaraDNS and Deadwood to talk to each other?

[Joshua Kinard]

I am looking at migrating a small, internal DNS server on my home network
over to MaraDNS-2.x from PowerDNS (only because PowerDNS 3.0 no longer
supports the LDAP backend module), but I am puzzled over how MaraDNS and
Deadwood talk to each other (if they do at all).

Being that MaraDNs is the authoritative server and Deadwood the recursive
server, what's the correct way to run both on the same host such that A/AAAA
queries for an internal host get answered by MaraDNS and queries for
everything else are answered by Deadwood?

Under PowerDNS, you point pdns to the "recursor" (precursor) via IP, and
pdns will use the recursor to query for any domain that it is not
authoritative for.  I cannot find the equivalent configuration for this in
MaraDNS/Deadwood, or I am not configuring it correctly.  Having used
PowerDNS for so long, I am not sure what MaraDNS' equivalent terminology for
this setup is in the documentation.

It's also possible that because the documentation attempts to service both
MaraDNS 1.4 and MaraDNS 2.0 questions simultaneously, where one did both
authoritative/recursive and the other does authoritative only, that this
adds to the confusion.

Current setup:
 - MaraDNS listening on an internal IP for DNS queries.
 - Deadwood listening on Loopback for recursive queries.

Actions:
 - Queries for internal hosts to MaraDNS resolve correctly.
 - Queries for external hosts to Deadwood resolve correctly.
 - Queries for external hosts (e.g., Google) to MaraDNS do NOT resolve.

For item #3, my thinking is that MaraDNS should first look to see if it can
answer the external query, then if not, have some way to kick the query over
to Deadwood.  Once Deadwood determines if it can answer, then it should
either return an answer or NXDOMAIN back to MaraDNS, which then forwards it
back to the client.

Correct?

Thanks!

-- 
Joshua Kinard
Gentoo/MIPS
kumba at gentoo.org
4096R/D25D95E3 2011-03-28

"The past tempts us, the present confuses us, the future frightens us.  And
our lives slip away, moment by moment, lost in that vast, terrible in-between."

--Emperor Turhan, Centauri Republic