stub zones [was: stub zones on root?]

[Simon Hobson]

Hanspeter Hagg wrote:

>And what does this mean:
>[...] Unless you have historically used 'stub' zones in BIND 4 (or 
>8) do not use them. BIND 9 provides limited support. [...]
>
>what is the 'limited' support in BIND 9? Is it recommendable to use 
>stub zones with BIND 9?

Well that had me looking at the docs since I use stub zones. From the 
reference manual :

>stub A stub zone is similar to a slave zone, except that it 
>replicates only the NS records of a master zone instead of the 
>entire zone. Stub zones are not a standard part of the DNS; they are 
>a feature specific to the BIND implementation.
>
>Stub zones can be used to eliminate the need for glue NS record in a 
>parent zone at the expense of maintaining a stub zone entry and a 
>set of name server addresses in named.conf. This usage is not 
>recommended for new configurations, and BIND 9 supports it only in a 
>limited way. ...

I assume you are referring to this bit, and I can't see much benefit 
to that useage anyway. Strikes me that you can put the child NS 
records in the zone, or you can put them in the config file - 6 of 
one, half a dozen of the other.

>Stub zones can also be used as a way of forcing the resolution of a 
>given domain to use a particular set of authoritative servers. For 
>example, the caching name servers on a private network using RFC2157 
>addressing may be configured with stub zones for 10.in-addr.arpa to 
>use a set of internal name servers as the authoritative servers for 
>that domain.

So this usage, which is what I use, doesn't seem to be deprecated. 
The advantage over slave zones, as far as I can see, is that for 
zones you need to be able to resolve, but don't use much, it 
eliminates the constant zone updates that could occur for unused data 
if the zone is dynamically updated, plus it works without the master 
server having to allow you to do zone transfers

Simon

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