How to set the Slave DNS Server ?

[Kevin Darcy]

Kevin Chan wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> I am a newbie on BIND and I am using BIND 8.   I was successful to setup a
> Primary DNS Server on my domain but I don't know how to set the Slave DNS
> Server.
>
> 1. What files I need to change on Primary DNS Server ?

Unless you're restricting zone transfers (via allow-transfer), or want to
enable certain enhanced server-to-server features (such as altering the
default format of zone transfers, or signing server-to-server transactions
with a TSIG key), you shouldn't need to change anything on the master.

> 2. Do I need to copy the /etc/named.conf and all zone file from Primary DNS
> Server to Slave DNS Server ?

No, the master server's named.conf defines all of those zones as "type
master". If you copied everything verbatim then the "slave" server would
certainly be able to answer queries, but it wouldn't automatically get any
updates to the zone data. You'd have to copy zonefiles and/or the named.conf
file over to the slave every time you made a change. (Note that some people
*prefer* to run this way, but it requires more setup and maintenance than a
"classic" master/slave configuration).

What you should probably do is take the master's named.conf file and then
modify it to be a slave named.conf by changing all of the "type master" zone
definitions into "type slave" zone definitions. At a minimum, besides changing
the zone type, you'll also need to add a "masters" clause to each of those,
specifying the master's IP address (if you have multiple slaves, you might
want to list multiple "masters" for redundancy).

> 3. Does any good web-site or document have show an example to setup BIND ?

Have you looked at the ARM in the BIND 9 distribution? It has some example
configs.


- Kevin