I have a domain, let's call it "example.com". I am able to do zone transfers on the local host as follows: dig example.com AXFR @localhost This command outputs all of the contents of the zone as expected. I am unable to do zone transfers on my subdomain though: dig subdomain.example.com AXFR @localhost ; <<>> DiG 9.2.1 <<>> subdomain.example.com AXFR @localhost ;; global options: printcmd ; Transfer failed. Below are my config files, truncated and with host names changed to protect the innocent: **** From /var/named/zones.conf *** **************************************************** zone "example.com" { type master; file "master/example.com"; }; zone "subdomain.example.com" { type master; file "master/subdomain.example.com"; }; *** From /var/named/master/example.com *** **************************************************** @ IN SOA ns.example.com. root.example.com. ( 2008092902 1H 10M 9D 5M ) NS ns1.slaveserver.net. NS ns2.slaveserver.net. A 66.45.102.50 (whole bunch of CNAME and A records removed for brevity's sake) *** From /var/named/master/subdomain.example.com *** **************************************************** $ttl 38400 @ IN SOA ns.example.com. root.example.com. ( 2008092222 5M 5M 7D 38400 ) subdomain.example.com IN NS host1.internal.ops. subdomain.example.com IN NS host2.internal.ops. (Note that internal.ops is for internal use only) What am I missing here?