Set up bind9 for home server

Question

I want to build a server at home and in order to serve subdomains I have to offer a DNS service. After several attempts and having followed many tutorials, I still have not been able to accomplish it. This is my configuration:

• LAN is 192.168.178.0/24
• server's hostname is zotac and it's IP is 192.168.178.10
• The domain's name should be spiti
• The subdomains should be reached by typing financer.spiti, fotos.spiti, wiki.spiti and so on in the browser from any device in the LAN
• bind9 is installed and running on zotac
• named-checkconf /etc/bind/named.conf throws no errors

---

Configuration files:

/etc/bind/named.conf.local

zone "spiti" {
        type master;
        file "/etc/bind/db.spiti";
};

zone "178.168.192.in-addr.arpa" {
        type master;
        notify no;
        file "/etc/bind/db.178.168.192";
};

/etc/bind/named.conf.options

options {
        directory "/var/cache/bind";
        forwarders {
                1.1.1.1;
                1.0.0.1;
        };
        dnssec-validation auto;

        auth-nxdomain no;    # conform to RFC1035
        listen-on-v6 { any; };
};

Zone "spiti":/etc/bind/db.spiti

$TTL    604800
@       IN      SOA     ns.spiti. root.localhost. (
                     2015121701         ; Serial
                         604800         ; Refresh
                          86400         ; Retry
                        2419200         ; Expire
                         604800 )       ; Negative Cache TTL
;
@       IN      NS      ns.spiti.
@       IN      A       192.168.178.10

ns              IN      A       192.168.178.10
localhost       IN      A       127.0.0.1
zotac           CNAME   A       ns
spiti           CNAME   A       ns

Reverse lookup:/etc/bind/db.178.168.192

$TTL    604800
@       IN      SOA     ns.spiti. root.localhost. (
                     2015121701         ; Serial
                         604800         ; Refresh
                          86400         ; Retry
                        2419200         ; Expire
                         604800 )       ; Negative Cache TTL
;
@       IN      NS      ns.spiti.
10      IN      PTR     financer.spiti.
10      IN      PTR     fotopoulos.spiti.
10      IN      PTR     spiti.

---

• curl zotac returns the index.html content under the apache home folder: ok.
• curl spiti returns Could not resolve host: spiti : not ok
• When I configure my modem-router to use my server as DNS server, no device has connection to internet.

What am I doing wrong?

---

@grawity , thanks for the tool, I did not know it. Unfortunately, I have no other ubuntu machine in the LAN, but if I do it from zotac, I get following:

dig zotac. @192.168.178.10

; <<>> DiG 9.11.3-1ubuntu1.3-Ubuntu <<>> zotac. @192.168.178.10
;; global options: +cmd
;; Got answer:
;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NXDOMAIN, id: 21239
;; flags: qr rd ra ad; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 0, AUTHORITY: 1, ADDITIONAL: 1
;; OPT PSEUDOSECTION:
; EDNS: version: 0, flags:; udp: 4096
; COOKIE: 3dbe6e33d4fd4f8919a248005c61bb9c52a74f69dd33aeb4 (good)
;; QUESTION SECTION:
;zotac.                         IN      A
;; AUTHORITY SECTION:
.                       3509    IN      SOA     a.root-servers.net. nstld.verisign-grs.com. 2019021101 1800 900 604800 86400
;; Query time: 0 msec
;; SERVER: 192.168.178.10#53(192.168.178.10)
;; WHEN: Mon Feb 11 19:14:52 CET 2019
;; MSG SIZE  rcvd: 137

dig spiti. @192.168.178.10

; <<>> DiG 9.11.3-1ubuntu1.3-Ubuntu <<>> spiti. @192.168.178.10
;; global options: +cmd
;; Got answer:
;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: SERVFAIL, id: 35818
;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 0, AUTHORITY: 0, ADDITIONAL: 1
;; OPT PSEUDOSECTION:
; EDNS: version: 0, flags:; udp: 4096
; COOKIE: 33c2f859bcd0fa769901e53a5c61bb35a046cc36e6bea06b (good)
;; QUESTION SECTION:
;spiti.                         IN      A
;; Query time: 0 msec
;; SERVER: 192.168.178.10#53(192.168.178.10)
;; WHEN: Mon Feb 11 19:13:09 CET 2019
;; MSG SIZE  rcvd: 62