nsupdate is not working on BIND8.2.3. why?

[Kevin Darcy]

Amy Yi wrote:

> Hello,
>
> I am currently using nsupdate to do the dynamic update RR on the BIND server
> 8.2.3.
> It is not working. What I did is:
>
> 1. change the named.conf, and start the name server
> option{
> ...
> allow-update {any;};
> ...
> }
>
> 2. change the resolv.conf, put the IP address of the running server as the
> first one.
>
> 3. run
> nsupdate
> > update add <newRR>
>
> 4. use nslookup --"ls -d <domain>" to check if the newRR is there.
>
> However  <newRR> is not shown in the domain at all.
>
> My question is
> 1) what is wrong with my steps?
>
> 2) can nsupdate itself chooses the BIND server it wants to communicate,
> instead of depending on the resolve.conf file in the /etc directory?

nsupdate chooses the nameservers it attempts to update based on the contents of
the SOA and NS records for the relevant zone(s). You can't "redirect" Dynamic
Updates solely by twiddling with the contents of /etc/resolv.conf (although you
can, of course, set up a "private" version of a zone on a nameserver, with the
appropriate SOA and/or NS records, and then point the /etc/resolv.conf to that
server -- be aware, however, that if there are any timeouts trying to talk to
that server, the resolver could fail over to a "public" nameserver further down
in your /etc/resolv.conf, and then the Dynamic Update might be made to the
wrong server or lost completely).


- Kevin