zone files and named.conf

[Kevin Darcy]

Barry Margolin wrote:

> In article <a8flt1$rgs at pub3.rc.vix.com>,
> James Simons  <jsimons at ntinet.com> wrote:
> >
> >I found out yesterday (by accident) that multiple domains in named.conf
> >can reference the same zone file.  So I got to thinking that this would
> >be a good way to reduce overall maintenance of zone files for me.  We
> >have .com, .net, .org, etc addresses for several of our domains and I do
> >hate to have multiple zone files to maintain for each one, so I thought
> >that I would put a reference to each one in named.conf and when I
> >specify the zone file just point it to the .com and go on with life.  I
> >wasn't sure how good this was for the overall DNS of the net but I knew
> >you guys would so please let me know!
>
> Yes, this will work, but you have to be careful.  Make sure that all the
> names you define use relative syntax; you can't define any fully-qualified
> names in the file, since they'll be out of zone for any domains other than
> the one it uses.

Unless of course you *want* the name to be constant for all zones, e.g. a single
mail server name as the target for multiple domains' MX records. Just make sure,
as always, to dot-terminate any fully-qualified name you use in a zone file.


- Kevin