Can I be a parent for a zone and a slave for a subdomain?

[Kevin Darcy]

A subzone delegation, in and of itself, publishes the existence of a zone in
the DNS database, but it does not specify who is master and who is slave for
the zone. This is something that needs to be configured "privately" into the
nameservers themselves. In the case of BIND, you configure the master/slave
distinction and associated parameters in the named.conf file. So no, there's no
contradiction in delegating a subzone and also being slave for it. These things
are configured in different places and serve different purposes. Being a master
means maintaining the original copy of the zone file; being a slave means you
get only a replica of the zonefile through an automated process. No-one else
really knows for sure, or cares, who the slave and who the master is. All the
delegation records do is provide enough information so that
*some* authoritative (i.e. master *or* slave, it doesn't matter) nameserver can
be found to answer the queries.



- Kevin

Michele Chubirka wrote:

> I've recently taken over the VERY large task of repairing our zone and
> upgrading our name server to Bind 8 from 4.97. I'm relatively new to
> DNS/Bind, but I've been closely studying this list and the O'Reilly Bind
> book.
> We have a class B subnet and administer a large domain with many subdomains.
> What I'm really confused about is that (according to the book and the
> representatives from ISPs I've spoken to) I understood that if I delegated a
> subdomain, I only maintained pointers to those domains by including their
> nameservers in my db files for said subdomains.
> I have a master and secondary nameserver upon which I make changes/updates.
> But after closely studying the files and speaking to the administrator for
> one of our subdomains, she indicates that she makes entries for her domains
> and then transfers her zone to my primary nameserver. Is this correct?! How
> can I be a Primary for the parent domain and a secondary for one of my
> subdomains? Wouldn't I have to have two configuration files? Or one
> indicating that I was primary for the parent zone, but secondary for the
> subdomain/child?
> When I look in the configuration file for our zone, the subdomain's
> nameservers are listed as secondary name servers for my domain, BUT THEY'RE
> MAKING ENTRIES for the subdomains! If they're secondaries, how can they make
> entries and be SOA for their subdomains?
>
> Michele Chubirka
> Systems Administrator
> George Washington University
> 202-994-5791