I just upgraded from etch to lenny and recursion support was removed from the defaults. So I had to make a few changes to bring it back in. Here is the change I needed to make.
Edit
sudo nano -w /etc/bind/named.conf.options
and after line
options {
directory "/var/cache/bind";
add:
recursion yes;
allow-recursion {any;};
allow-query {any;}; // this is needed to override the default
allow-transfer {"none"; }; // transfer will be allowed per zone below.
***** Warning this allows anyone that can talk to this box to use dns though your box.
If you just want to set it up though localhost read here.
http://fixunix.com/dns/51724-re-bind-9-allow-recursion-limited-localhost...
If you want to have and extern and internal groups.
Thanks
Robert