Caching-only name servers are servers not authoritative for any domains except 0.0.127.in-addr.arpa , the localhost. A caching-only name server can look up names inside and outside your zone, as can primary and slave name servers. The difference is that when a caching-only name server initially looks up a name within your zone, it ends up asking one of the primary or slave names servers for your zone for the answer. http://www.faqs.org/docs/securing/chap21sec164.html How To: Configure Caching Nameserver (named) The necessary files to setup a simple caching name server are: named.conf db.127.0.0 db.cache named script To configure the /etc/named.conf file for a simple caching name server, use this for all servers that dont act as a master or slave name server. Setting up a simple caching server for local client machines will reduce the load on the network's primary server. Many users on dialup connections may use this configurati...