Question Re: Windows Hosts and BIND

[Kevin Darcy]

tnaves at linkwest.net wrote:

>Do you folks typically include all your Windows hosts as well as other
>hosts in your dns zones?  I noticed that if I did not include my Windows
>hosts in dns the NXDOAMIN incident went way up.  If I checked antivirus on
>a host using my web browser that would result in an NXDOMAIN.  Also if
>someone was using a MS Proxy Server each time he connects to the Internet
>would result in an NXDOMAIN.
>
>I was wondering what is best practice?
>
Our historical practice here is to not include ordinary PC hosts in DNS. 
However, some of the more modern management (e.g. remote-control) apps 
like to work with names instead of IP addresses even for PC devices. 
So's there's a certain amount of pressure to put everything into DNS.

Having said that, though, I'm not sure why you're worrying so much about 
NXDOMAINs. NXDOMAIN is a *response*, not an error, like the word 
"non-existent", which is not problematic in and of itself; it depends on 
the context. It's perfectly normal and natural to have plenty of 
NXDOMAINs. While they are to a certain extent symptomatic of problems 
with other apps, i.e. why keeping looking up names you've already been 
told don't exist?, there's no way you can go through all of those apps 
and fix/optimize them all (unless you run exclusively Open Source 
software and have *lots* of time on your hands). Optimize what you can 
optimize, and leave the rest up to others...

-Kevin