I was under the impression - from the documentation - that the ip name-server commands only configured the dns "client side" of the switch itself; and that if you wanted the switch to be either an authoritative name server *or* a forwarder you needed to enable the switch as a "server side" via ip dns server.
From the doc (I want the caching name server version):
A Cisco IOS device can provide service to DNS clients, acting as both a caching name server and as an authoritative name server for its own local host table.
When configured as a caching name server, the device relays DNS requests to other name servers that resolve network names into network addresses. The caching name server caches information learned from other name servers so that it can answer requests quickly, without having to query other servers for each transaction.
....
SUMMARY STEPS
1. enable
2. configure terminal
3. ip dns server <- this command fails with % Invalid input detected at '^' marker. The '^' marker is under the "n" in "dns".
4. ip name-server server-address1 [server-address2... server-address6]
5. ip dns server queue limit {forwarder queue-size-limit | director queue-size-limit}
6. ip host [vrf vrf-name] [view view-name] hostname {address1 [address2 ... address8] | additional address9 [address10 ... addressn]}
7. ip dns primary domain-name soa primary-server-name mailbox-name [refresh-interval [retry-interval [expire-ttl [minimum-ttl]]]]
8. ip host domain-name ns server-name
There are more steps following step 3; though I'm not sure they're all necessary. But even if they are; they'd *follow* step 3; not precede it.
Now, *before* I wanted to convert this unit to a caching name server; I already had the "ip name-server <server1> <server2> commands in place; so the switch could resolve host names for itself; though actually nothing in the switch configuration references host names other than that of the switch itself; which obviously would already know it's own IP.
