root domain questions on closed net

[Scott Morizot]

On Thu, 17 Feb 2000, Rick Reineman wrote:
> I'm running this on Solaris7, BIND release 4.9.4 (comes with the OS).  For
> this network I expect to have several hundred clients across a dozen or so
> subnets, a single domain.

Solaris 7 Server comes with BIND 8.1.2, a very different animal from
the BIND 4.x versions.  The configuration file is completely
different.  We've been using Solaris for years at work through
all the versions.  They used BIND 4.8.3 until 2.6 (or a
patched 2.5) which brought it to 4.9.4.  Solaris 7, the
upgrade to 2.6 came with version 8.1.2.

> My initial confusion is about the root master.
> 
> Can the root master reside on the same machine as the zone primary master?
>
> Is the root master really a server or even a process?  It almost looks like
> the root master is simply a config entry in the named.ca file.

If you aren't going to have an internal root, you don't need a
hints file at all, and shouldn't use one since there is no root server
that the name server can reach.  If you intend to have an internal
root, then you have a server somewhere that is master for the zone ".".
It can have other zones in it.  You should also have at least one
slave for the internal root zone.  Other name servers would reference
those servers in their hints file.

> In Suns documentation there seems to be conflicting samples.  In one case the
> named.ca is a couple of lines, in another case it is similar to part of the
> named.conf sample.  If someone could email their named.ca for a closed network
> I would appreciate that.
> 
> I have an O'Reilly DNS book from 1993, seems old but they talk about BIND
> 4.8.3.  I assume the book is suitable for my install.

ISC has more current BIND documentation online at:

http://www.isc.org/

The '93 version of the O'Reilly book won't help you with
more than the basic concepts.  You really need the most
current one (3rd edition).

Scott
tmorizot at ccsi.com
tmorizot at adc.is.irs.gov