BIND 9 zone transfer problems with NT & Win2K- when?

[Mark_Andrews at isc.org]

> Hi,
> 
> I'd like to migrate my two internal-only DNS servers to from BIND 8.2.3 to
> BIND 9.2.1 but see a few MS KB articles about problems. BIND is the master
> and all of the secondaries are either Windows 2000 or NT 4.
> 
> http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;q297936 - "This
> problem occurs because Windows 2000 DNS servers limit the acceptance of
> Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) zone transfer (AXFR) messages to a
> maximum of 16 kilobytes (KB). BIND version 9.x may send TCP AXFR messages
> that are greater than 16 KB.; therefore, the zone transfer does not work."
> 
> http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;Q302639 - "The
> Microsoft DNS service may have problems when it acts as a secondary server
> for a zone whose master is on a BIND version 9.x DNS server. Specifically,
> zone transfers may not work. This problem can occur because Microsoft DNS
> servers have a limitation of receiving 16 kilobytes (KB) AXFR (full zone
> transfer) messages."
> 
> My question is what would cause BIND to send a transfer greater than 16K?

	A zone that takes requires more that 16k to transmit.

> Obviously a large zone file, but is there any correlation between the zone
> file physical size and the transfer message size? If so, would df -k show
> whether  I might have the problem? We currently do full zone transfers only.

	You can work around the bug in the W2K machines by telling
	named to send the zone transfer in one-answer format.  This
	works so long as there are no individual records that exceed
	16k.

	server 1.2.3.4 {
		transfer-format one-answer;
	};

> 
> Thanks,
> 
> Ray
> 
> 
--
Mark Andrews, Internet Software Consortium
1 Seymour St., Dundas Valley, NSW 2117, Australia
PHONE: +61 2 9871 4742                 INTERNET: Mark.Andrews at isc.org