BIND9 CNAME format

[Joseph S D Yao]

On Mon, Dec 04, 2006 at 11:34:36AM -0600, Chas Meyer wrote:
> Hey folks.  I've recently moved over to BIND9 from tinyDNS and am trying 
> to troubleshoot the following issue:
> 
> Can anyone tell me why the following entry errors when trying to load 
> the zonefile:
> 
> $ORIGIN acu.edu.
> bible                  CNAME   bibleacu.com.


I find frequent use of $ORIGIN - indeed, ANY use except to introduce an
end section dealing with a subdomain of the base domain - extremely
confusing, and confusion often leads to not saying what you intended to
say.  There is usually NO need to use it anywhere within a typical zone
file.

I suspect that you have "bible.acu.edu." in some form on the left hand
of some other resource record.  It is illegal to have any name on the
left hand side of a CNAME record and on the left hand side of any other
record.

But I could very well be wrong.  I only suspect that because it's done
so commonly, especially in older and non-RFC compliant DNS software.  I
have no way to tell why errors are generated because you DON'T SAY WHAT
THE ERROR MESSAGE IS.  Or include anything else about the zone file.


> And why these two entries work:
> 
> $ORIGIN .
> bible.acu.edu          CNAME   bibleacu.com.
> 
> $ORIGIN bible.acu.edu.
> www                     CNAME   bibleacu.com.


Why would they not work?  Unless, of course, you included the first
record in this set with the record in the earlier set.  But they mean
the same thing!


-- 
Joe Yao
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