Unix BIND DNS & Window 2000 DDNS Integration

[Kevin Darcy]

Viet.Tran at isd.CO.Santa-Clara.CA.US wrote:

> Hi,
>
> We currently have Unix DNS with BIND 8.2.3 to support about 50 subdomains.
> Each group of subdomains has its own email server.  The Unix DNS is also
> the central mail relay for all subdomains.  We plan to migrate to Windows
> 2000 Active Directory for the majority of these subdomains.  If we delegate
> a subdomain for Windows 2000 DDNS Active Directory, we will also have to
> change current mail addressing scheme, won't we?  Besides such a delegation
> do we have any other option without affecting mail functionality?

If you delegate a subdomain to some non-BIND nameserver and you have important
MX'es that need to be maintained in that subzone, then you'd better make damn
sure that the non-BIND nameserver can maintain those MX'es reasonably. I don't
know if Microsoft DNS can handle MX records or not. Maybe you should ask
Microsoft.

> Can we
> have two primary servers -- one Windows 2000 DDNS, one Unix BIND 8.2.3 --
> serving at the same time authoritative role right from the local top level
> domain?

Sure you can, but practically speaking any given client can only get an answer
from *one* version of the zone. So you'd have to divide your world up into
"clients that care about sending mail" and "clients that care about resolving
Win2K names" and the two sets would be mutually exclusive. Not a very
attractive prospect.

Why don't you just use a totally separate domain for the Active
Directory-related stuff? That's what we're planning to do. That leaves our
current namespace completely intact.


- Kevin