recursion and propogation

[Kevin Darcy]

Glenn Vidad wrote:

> from a 40,000 foot view, does recursion directly affect propogation?
>
> we're a small ASP, and although we don't provide dns resolution to our
> clients
> we only host their domain names (did that make sense?)...  we do, however,
> provide dns resolution internally.  i was thinking about going the way of
> the
> workaround by adding...
>
> options { directory "/etc/named";
>         recursion no;
>         allow-recursion { 192.168.0.0/24; 10.1.1.0/24; };
> };
>
> to our named.conf file.  will this do the following.
> allow internal users to use our nameservers for name resolution?
> block internet users from using our nameservers for name resolution?
> still allow zone transfers and propagation once a zone file is modified?
>
> i'm hoping the answers are all yes, but while discussing these issues
> with other people inhouse, i've gotten confused specifically with the
> 3rd question.  i think it should still work, others question my conclusion,
> and i'm not wanting to take the risk and give a guarantee that it will work.
> any help is appreciated..

The zone transfer transaction is inherently non-recursive, so recursion
shouldn't *directly* affect it one way or another. If the server is overloaded
doing recursive queries, of course, then everything suffers, including zone
transfers.


- Kevin