DNS Cache - Bind

[Jack Barnett]

I'm running Bind 9.3.4 on FreeBSD 6.2 for my local network.

It doesn't have any zones, it's just a local DNS that has a bunch of forwarders.

The first request is slow (between 150 and 300 ms) - but after that
(the next query on same domain) is fast (less then 10 ms usually).
This is nice and working the way I like it. :)

What I'm wondering though is:

a) How do I flush the cache if I need to (ie. need to get a new update
from the forwards) - just restart named?

b) Are there any settings I can tweak that determine how long the
cache is kept?  (ie. Say I want to keep all queries for 7 days before
they are queried from the upstream DNS servers).  [This will probably
screw up dynamic DNS sites, but want to see what settings are
available]

c) Is there a easy way to 'blacklist' sites?  Say I want
'SpammerNetwork.com' to resolve to 127.0.0.1.

Basically I want to take this host file:
http://www.mvps.org/winhelp2002/hosts.htm
and then pump it into my DNS server, that way all the LAN clients are
"protected" from these sites.
Is there a way to do that?


-J