How do I correctly configure PTR records?

[BadBoo]

In article <ZJN55.11$ya2.1233 at burlma1-snr2>,
  Barry Margolin <barmar at genuity.net> wrote:
> In article <8j7av8$293$1 at nnrp1.deja.com>, BadBoo
<bmeyer at rocsoft.net> wrote:
> >I believe the error is that I have this line wrong:
> >
> >IN	SOA	ns.rocsoft.net.	bmeyer.rocsoft.net. (
> >
> >and that it should be:
> >
> >IN	SOA	ns.bellsouth.net.	dnsadmin at bellatlantic.net. (
>
> No, the problem is that you're missing the '@' at the beginning of the
> line, i.e. it should be:
>
> @   IN SOA  masterserver emailaddress (
>
> Assuming the machine you're doing this on is ns.rocsoft.net, you got
that
> field correct; and since your email address is bmeyer at rocsoft.net,
you got
> that field correct.  I'm not sure why you thought that these should
contain
> information about your ISP.  But it doesn't really matter, since
hardly
> anything cares about these two fields (the masterserver is only used
by
> machines sending dynamic updates, and the email address is usually
only
> used by people).
>
> >Once I do that, What line do I insert to show where my server becomes
> >the authority?
>
> The '@' stands for the current origin, which defaults to the zone
name in
> the named.conf file.
>
> >Also, Do I use an $ORIGIN line and if so, what should it look like?
>
> You don't need it unless you need to change the origin from the zone
name.
>
> --
> Barry Margolin, barmar at genuity.net
> Genuity, Burlington, MA
> *** DON'T SEND TECHNICAL QUESTIONS DIRECTLY TO ME, post them to
newsgroups.
> Please DON'T copy followups to me -- I'll assume it wasn't posted to
the group.
>
>

Thanks for the reply Barry (and everyone else!)
It was due to my complete unfamiliarity with the '@' use instead of
ORIGIN. The server I inherited had $ORIGIN statments on every file.  I
am posting my fixed snippets below. In the named.conf file I was indeed
missing the IN and the whitepace, though oddly it didn't seem to
change things one way or the other.  IN the rev file, it was mostly
hosed, but the '@' replacing $ORIGIN and the NS reference seemed to
have been the key.

Do I replace the $ORIGIN with @ in all the rev (db) files, or just the
IN-ADDR.ARPA type files? (I guess that would be called PTR records and
the rev (db) are called ZONE files?) I will be trying it in the
meantime.

As far as the serial number goes, I had typed all that in by hand
yesterday, and got aggravvated with he serial numbers and put the '98'
in trying to be funny. Sorry, that won't happen again. I should have
matched it on the error message if I was going to screw around. I
apologize. These two snippets are 'cut and pasted' and no fiddling
around. These seem to work perfectly. I followed this route with all
the PTR files and the errors disappeared. God bless those folks that
write DNSEXPERT. Without their 7 day free trial I could have never done
this. (14 hours non stop) I gotta get my Boss to pay for a copy just to
show my gratitude.
Ok, back to work, here are the snippets:

; Record cremated by BadBoo
;
@	IN	SOA	ns.rocsoft.net.	hostmaster.rocsoft.net. (

			2000062614	; serial
			10800		; refresh
			3600		; retry
			604800		; expire
			86400	)	; default_ttl
@	IN	NS	ns.rocsoft.net.
;
; Subnet mask is 255.255.255.248 (8 I.P.s)
;
65		IN	PTR	gate1.rocsoft.net.
66		IN	PTR	badboo.rocsoft.net.
		IN	TXT	"Workstation containing sensitive
national secrets"
;67		IN	PTR	bm2nt1.rocsoft.net.
;68		IN	PTR	bm2win98r.rocsoft.net.
;69		IN	PTR	bm2win98l.rocsoft.net.
;70		IN	PTR	bm2lin1.rocsoft.net.
;71		IN	PTR	bm2bsd1.rocsoft.net.
;72		IN	PTR	bm2jm1.rocsoft.net.
;73		IN	PTR	whiffnic2.rocsoft.net.


zone "64.63.152.205.in-addr.arpa" in {
	type master;
	file "205.152.63.64.rev";
};

I won't be leaving the TXT field in their. I just wanted to see if that
works or not. (All work, and no play  makes bruce real tired boy)

Again,
  Thanks to all the people who assisted. Coffee is on me today.


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