Almost There ...

[Kevin Darcy]

Desmond Coughlan wrote:

> Hi again,
> I've decided to follow to the letter all of the instructions in the
> doc/arm pages.
>
> The file Bv9ARM.ch04.html lists the syntax as ...
>
> options {
>      directory "/etc/namedb";           // Working directory
>      pid-file "named.pid";              // Put pid file in working dir
>      allow-query { any; };              // This is the default
>      recursion no;                      // Do not provide recursive
> service
> };
> // Root server hints
> zone "." { type hint; file "root.hint"; };
>
> // Provide a reverse mapping for the loopback address 127.0.0.1
> zone "0.0.127.in-addr.arpa" {
>      type master;
>      file "localhost.rev";
>      notify no;
> };
> // We are the master server for example.com
> zone "example.com" {
>      type master;
>      file "example.com.db";
>      // IP addresses of slave servers allowed to transfer example.com
>      allow-transfer {
>           192.168.4.14;
>           192.168.5.53;
>      };
> };
> // We are a slave server for eng.example.com
> zone "eng.example.com" {
>      type slave;
>      file "eng.example.com.bk";
>      // IP address of eng.example.com master server
>      masters { 192.168.4.12; };
> };
>
> I've done exactly as they suggested here, and in fact, this example serves
> my purposes well, as the server I'm installing, will be primary for one
> zone, and secondary for another zone.
>
> However, nowhere in that doc, can I find the syntax of the other files,
> namely ...
>
> # cd /etc/namedb
> # ls
> company.com.db  company.com.bk
> localhost.rev
>
> I imagine the .bk file will be obtained from the primary server, but
> concerning the zone for which this server _is_ primary ... is it safe to
> use the example in the file ...
>
> http://ftp.ripe.net/ripe/docs/ripe-192.html
>
> ..?
>
> I ask, because at the beginning of this file, it says ...
>
> 'and that you are using the Berkeley Internet Name Daemon (BIND) version 8
> or version 4.'
>
> I'm not.  I'm using 9.1.2.

You should be able to follow the RIPE example files, with one major
exception: you need to put a $TTL xxxx at the top of each master zone file,
where xxxx is the value, in seconds, that you want to be the default TTL for
the records in the zone. See doc/misc/migration for more details.

Note also that the BIND 9 documentation has a section dealing with zonefile
format. You could read that to get a better idea of what everything in the
examples actually *does*.

> I have /etc/namedb/root.hints
>
> What is the next step, after having defined company.com.db ?  Can I start
> named, and expect it to get the zone data for the file .bk ?

Before you go to the second step, you should start/restart the master server
and query it for some names in company.com to make sure you get authoritative
answers. If you're not getting authoritative answers, that indicates a
problem loading the zone file. If your master is not answering
authoritatively, zone transfers won't work, so it's worthwhile to check this
out before you attempt any master/slave replication.


- Kevin