nsupdate doesn't edit any files, right?

[Kevin Darcy]

a a wrote:

> >The files are immediately written to non-volatile
> storage and
> >periodically dumped to the zonefile name. For
> instance, on BIND 8, the
> >changes are immediately written to a ".log" file. I'm
> not 100% sure how
> >BIND 9 manages things. Assuming no corruption of the
> files, no disk
> >errors, etc., no updates are lost.
> >
> >I'm always suspicious when people ask these types of
> questions, though.
> >When you migrate to using Dynamic Update, you should
> no longer rely on
> >using the disk files for finding out all information
> about the zone: the
> >running nameserver has the most up-to-date and
> consistently-formatted
> >view of the zone data, and you should be querying it
> instead of trying
> >to parse disk files.
>
> Well, we're not trying to parse disk files.  The main
> issue was that we want the changes to be persistent in
> some way, otherwise it's kind of pointless, no?  We've
> got web hosting appliance software (Ensim Webppliance)
> that will let our customers order and create their own
> virtual hosting site on the fly.

Hopefully I answered that question clearly. The changes are committed to
non-volatile storage immediately, although not necessarily all in one
place, or in one particular format, nor do you have any direct control
over when they ultimately get written to the zonefile. But assuming no
hardware problems or software bugs, you shouldn't ever lose any updates.

> For this to be as hands-off as possible, we want to
> automate the new DNS entries as the new sites are
> created.  We have dedicated DNS servers and don't want
> or need the appliances to do DNS.
>
> Actually, does nsupdate allow you to add entire new
> zones too, or do the zones have to exist on that DNS
> server already?

No, you can't create a zone entirely through Dynamic Update. The most
you can do via nsupdate is create the delegations to that zone from the
parent zone (if applicable). Zone-creation is deliberately forbidden by
the Dynamic Update RFC because its author(s) got too hung up on
implementation details and couldn't imagine how automatic
master-zone-creation might work in practice (my personal opinion,
obviously). So we're stuck with manual -- or, in the case of us who have
converted almost all of our DNS maintenance to Dynamic Update,
semi-manual -- zone creation, at least until the spec can be amended.
Sigh...


- Kevin

> >a a wrote:
> >
> >> Hi all,
> >>
> >> This sounds like a total FAQ, but I've yet to see
> >> anywhere that this question was answered
> specifically.
> >>
> >> When you use nsupdate, it only updates zone
> >> information in the running database of BIND, and
> does
> >> not actually edit any zone files, right?  I've
> tested
> >> nsupdate successfully, and I see that the DNS
> server
> >> resolves my new entries, but no files have been
> >> touched.
> >>
> >> So if you had to restart DNS all updates via
> nsupdate
> >> are lost?  Or is there some way to keep changes
> >> persistent?
>