Very basic newbie question

[Jim Reid]

>>>>> "Phil" == Phil White <phil> writes:

    Phil> Can somone explain the difference between a secondary DNS
    Phil> server, and what my net-admin calls a 'mirrored primary'

Ask your net admin or whoever invented the term 'mirrored primary'.
It's not part of normal DNS jargon.

I'd guess that this means there's another system that shadows the
master (primary) name server. When the operational system dies, the
other one kicks in somehow. There's usually no need for this. Every
zone should have >1 name server so there isn't a single point of
failure if one name server is unavailable. [The DNS protocol enables
name servers to sort of route around dead name servers.] Having a
'mirrored primary' would allow DNS zone files to be updated when the
real master server was out of service. This isn't usually required
unless someone is foolish enough to run their master name server on an
unreliable platform. Short outages of the master server will not cause
problems in a properly set up DNS configuration. Having a 'mirrored
primary' will complicate things because the DNS data - zone files,
audit trails, etc - have to be sync'ed across the real server and its
mirror. This may be more bother than it's worth.