Thank you all for your valuable time.
Well, I managed to get things working despite my ISP. I changed dnscache to forward my ISPs DNS instead of using the root servers, per http://leaf.sourceforge.net/devel/jnilo/dnscache3.html#AEN113. Now I'm able to resolve my mail server, mail.bllvwa.cablespeed.com correctly. When I had tried to ping the mail server from XP and failed, this was the error message : Ping request could not find host mail.bllvwa.cablespeed.com. Please check the name and try again.
At the moment I'll probably leave well enough alone, but what real problems am I going to have by not using the root name servers and sticking with the ISP name servers? As this exercise shows, one benefit could be that no matter how bad my ISP messes up the name records, I'll always be able to find it.
There shouldn't be any serious problems with running this way, as long as your ISP's DNS servers are reliable. If they are not, you may find yourself with a link to the internet, but no useful way to find anything when their DNS servers are down (I had this happen to me a lot with my first DSL line from Southwestern Bell).
If you want to continue using the root nameservers, you can go back to your initial dnscache configuration, but add an entry directing queries for bllvwa.cablespeed.com directly to your ISP's name servers, rather than letting resolve normally. To do this, put an entry(ies) for your ISP's name space(s) in the servers/ directory.
<quote from dnscache man page>
dnscache reads a list of dotted-decimal root server IP addresses, one address per line, from servers/@. It also scans the servers directory for server IP addresses for other domains. If there are addresses listed in servers/moon.af.mil, for example, then dnscache will send queries for anything.moon.af.mil to those addresses, and will not cache records for anything.moon.af.mil from outside servers such as the root servers.
Versions 1.03 and above: If $FORWARDONLY is set, dnscache treats servers/@ as a list of IP addresses for other caches, not root servers. It forwards queries to those caches. It does not contact the root servers, or any other DNS servers, directly.
</quote>
You should have a servers/bllvwa.cablespeed.com file with the IP(s) of your ISP's DNS servers if you wish to go back to using the root name servers and still have your ISP's names resolve.
-- Charles Steinkuehler [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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