Version Number for old Bind installations

[Kevin Darcy]

Jack Barnett wrote:

> bash-2.00$ /usr/sbin/nslookup
>
> Default Server:  localhost
> Address:  127.0.0.1
>
> > set class=chaos
> > set type=txt
> > version.bind
>
> Server:  localhost
> Address:  127.0.0.1
>
> *** localhost can't find version.bind: Server failed
> >
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Hi,
>
> A couple questions here for everyone if someone would be kind enough to
> answer.
>
> 1) I know the version of Bind they have install is old, really old and was
> planning to upgrade it.  I think it is in the 4.* series but not sure what
> specific version (it has the old style syntax), but the info in the FAQ
> about getting the version number doesn't seem to work.  Am I doing something
> wrong, or is getting the version number handled different in the 4.x series?

The version.bind hack wasn't added until late in the 4.x lifecycle. On earlier
versions, you have to resort to methods like "strings named" to find the
version number.

> 2) I plan to upgrade to BIND Version 8.2.2 patchlevel 5 (Released November
> 12th, 1999).  This is the one that they have listed as stable on secure on
> the web page.  What I was wondering is, first both DNS servers are old and
> have different syntax,
>
> 2a)  is there an easy way (ie: anyone have a perl script) that will parse
> the old named db files into a format that  is compatible with the newer bind
> version?  There is a lot of domains between the two servers (like 250+) and
> everyone (about 10 people over the years) has used there own "style" about
> doing things, so basically it is a complete fscking mess in the
> /usr/local/named directory...

In the BIND distribution, there are Bourne Shell and Perl versions of a program
called "named-bootconf" that will do this conversion.

> 3) The primary server we use for primary DNS and secondary server for
> secondary DNS.  What I wanted to do, is upgrade the secondary DNS to the
> newer version of bind to find any problems that might occur when upgrading,
> and also if any problems do happen, hopefully it won't be as noticeable to
> the users if the secondary DNS is having problem, opposed to the primary
> server having problems.  The question is
>
> 3a) Will the new bind (8 series) be able to work with the older style DNS (4
> series) temporary without problems, or is there any known compatibility
> issues between the two of em?

As long as you have a fairly vanilla configuration, there shouldn't be any
master/slave incompatibilities. And "named-bootconf"'s output is quite vanilla.
Only if you start tinkering with zone transfer parameters are you likely to
create a master/slave incompatibility.

BTW, you might want to start changing your terminology from "primary" and
"secondary" to "master" and "slave". That's the terminology used for defining
zones in BIND 8, and is generally less confusing (especially since WinTel
insists on referring to the first nameserver listed in a resolver configuration
as the "primary" and the second as the "secondary". Cringe.)


- Kevin