zone files and named.conf

[Barry Margolin]

In article <a8fuoc$6b at pub3.rc.vix.com>,
Kevin Darcy  <kcd at daimlerchrysler.com> wrote:
>
>Barry Margolin wrote:
>
>> In article <a8flt1$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.

I was referring to the names you *define*, i.e. the ones on the lefthand
side of resource records.  I.e. it's OK to do:

@ IN MX 10 mail.maindomain.com.

but not:

maindomain.com. IN MX 10 mail.maindomain.com.

-- 
Barry Margolin, barmar at genuity.net
Genuity, Woburn, MA
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