A strange zone transfer problem

[Barry Margolin]

In article <20000425194250.98023.qmail at hotmail.com>,
Tun _ <tun_ at hotmail.com> wrote:
>I am having a strange problem with my name server.  This name server
>is primary and slave for a number of zones.  Out of the slave zones, a
>few of them are getting below error messages.  Those slaves have the same 
>primary DNS server. Other than below error my name server is working 
>properly for its primary and other slave zones.
>
>zone transfer timeout for "domainname.com"; pid 12345 killed
>named-xfer "domainname.com" exited with signal 15.
>
>The strange part is that the slave zones that are getting error are
>still resolving on my name server. So it tells me that it is getting cache 
>info from primary but the backup db files are not getting updated because 
>above error.

It's using the info it got from the last time it was able to do a zone
transfer.  It will continue to be authoritative until the SOA Expire time
runs out, and then it will keep giving out the old data but without the
authoritative flag set.

>I have two questions:
>1. Since my named appear to be functioning, what could have cause
>this problem.  (maybe some traffic are being bloack on the network?)

named-xfer is successfully connecting to the master, but then it's hanging
waiting for the data to arrive (after an hour or two named kills the hung
named-xfer process).  Usually a packet filter prevents the initial
connection, so this seems more like a problem with the master.

>2. How can I turn-on a higher level of logging for named-xfer
>process?  I am hoping that it might give me more info to trouble shoot.

You can run named-xfer manually, with the -d option to specify a debugging
level.  Use named-xfer -h to see all the arguments.

-- 
Barry Margolin, barmar at genuity.net
Genuity, Burlington, MA
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