Secondary DNS config

[Kevin Darcy]

Peter wrote:

>I have 2 DNS servers .. (well, actually, I have a primary that works,
>and a RH9 box that has DNS configuration files that do not do anything
>.... but that is just getting technical).
>
>Anyway, I was trying to set up a slave DNS, however, it is not doing
>it's job.  If I make a change on the master, it never makes it to the
>slave.  I did not really know what I was doing, although I did read a
>lot.  Both the primary and the secondary are rh9 boxes running bind
>(no I do not know what version).
>
>Basically, All I did to configure the slave, is copy all of forwared
>and reverse lookup files in the /etc/named directory as well as the
>named.conf file from the master to the slave.  I then changed (in all
>locations of the named.conf file on the slave) all lines that said
>"type master" to "type slave" and then added a line to each zone that
>was a slave "masters { a.b.c.d; }; ".  I then restarted bind on both
>the primary and slave.
>
>Does anyone know why my server is not working properly ?
>
Does the master have an "allow-transfer" statement, either globally or 
in the relevant zone definition(s)? Is the slave logging any errors?

>I also had one other question, If the primary DNS goes down, should
>the slave continue to serve the requests ?
>
Assuming it has a good, unexpired copy of the zone, a slave will serve 
queries for a zone regardless of whether the master is up or down. In 
fact, it's fairly common to have a "hidden" master that is not reachable 
from ordinary nameservers, and for the slaves to take on the entire 
burden of authoritatively answering queries for the zone. You control 
what nameservers other nameservers use for resolving your zones via the 
contents of your NS records.

                                                                         
                                          - Kevin