Linux service 'named' is not functional - is that an issue?

Question

One of the dedicated servers that I have does not seem to have the service 'named' functional:

root@server2 [~]# service named start
Locating /var/named/chroot//etc/named.conf failed:
                                                           [FAILED]

Note that the double slashes (//) ARE part of the output as well as the long gap before [FAILED] appears.

This 'named' service not being functional is not a problem which is preventing the server / the application on it from working, but I'm wondering if this is a serious issue?

There are entries in /etc/resolv.conf though.

Answer 1

Quoting from the Linux Documentation Project on,
Security Quick-Start HOWTO for Red Hat Linux:
Step 1: Which services do we really need?

BIND (named) - This often is installed by default, but is only really needed if you are an authoritative name server for a domain. If you are not sure what this means, then you definitely don't need it.
BIND is probably the number one crack target on the Internet.
BIND is often used though in a "caching" only mode.
This can be quite useful, but does not require full exposure to the Internet.
In other words, it should be restricted or firewalled.

^{And, if you really want to use a caching DNS, I guess BIND 9 should also be checked.}