Zone reload time after NOTIFY

[Scott, Casey]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Mark_Andrews at isc.org [mailto:Mark_Andrews at isc.org] 
> Sent: Tuesday, May 23, 2006 4:30 PM
> To: Scott, Casey
> Cc: Barry Margolin; comp-protocols-dns-bind at isc.org
> Subject: Re: Zone reload time after NOTIFY 
> 
> 
> > > > I have a BIND machine configured as a secondary server 
> with 1 zone. 
> > > > The zone can receive many DDNS update from Windows clients. 
> > > The DDNS
> > > > updates occur on the primary server, which is Windows 2003. My 
> > > > question is that although the primary DNS server sends
> > > NOTIFY's to the
> > > > BIND server, the BIND server takes quite a while before it
> > > implements any of the changes.
> > > > I can not find any BIND config option that will effect the 
> > > > responsiveness of BIND to NOTIFY's. I don't want to 
> force BIND to 
> > > > reload the zone for every NOTIFY, but I would like to have some 
> > > > control over the amount of time taken to implement the
> > > changes in the zone.
> > > 
> > > What is "quite a while"?  BIND waits a random amount of time, to 
> > > avoid a thundering herd problem if all the slaves tried 
> to transfer 
> > > immediately.
> > > But this shouldn't be much more than a minute, I think.
> > > 
> > > --
> > > Barry Margolin, barmar at alum.mit.edu
> > > Arlington, MA
> > > *** PLEASE post questions in newsgroups, not directly to me ***
> > > *** PLEASE don't copy me on replies, I'll read them in 
> the group ***
> > > 
> > > 
> > > 
> > 
> > Its been between 15-30 minutes each time. BIND is installed 
> from RPM, 
> > and running on a RHEL 4 machine.
> > 
> > Thanks,
> > Casey
> 
> 	Are you measuring the time it takes named to write the
> 	master file or the time it takes named to transfer the
> 	updated zone contents and to serve the contents.  These
> 	are usually very different times.
> 
> 	Are the notify messages being sent from a address in the
> 	masters clause.  Named will, by default, only act on notify
> 	messages that match a master.  Notifies from non masters
> 	will be acknowledge but otherwise ignored.
> 
> 	Lastly there are many different versions of BIND.  It is
> 	useful to report which version you are running,  "named -v"
> 	will report it.
> 
> 	Mark
> --
> Mark Andrews, ISC
> 1 Seymour St., Dundas Valley, NSW 2117, Australia
> PHONE: +61 2 9871 4742                 INTERNET: Mark_Andrews at isc.org
> 

BIND 9.2.4 running on RHEL-4 U2

The zone is configured with Ips of all the primary nameservers as
masters.

This is a relevant portion of /var/log/messages:

May 23 16:37:28 RHEL-4-Test named[2572]: zone examplezone.com/IN:
transferred serial 9909782
May 23 16:37:28 RHEL-4-Test named[2572]: zone examplezone.com/IN:
sending notifies (serial 9909782)
May 23 16:38:03 RHEL-4-Test ntpd[1990]: kernel time sync enabled 0001
May 23 16:38:04 RHEL-4-Test named[2572]: received notify for zone
'examplezone.com'
May 23 16:38:04 RHEL-4-Test named[2572]: journal file
/etc/slave/examplezone.com.slave.jnl does not exist, creating it
May 23 16:38:04 RHEL-4-Test named[2572]: zone examplezone.com/IN:
transferred serial 9909783
May 23 16:38:04 RHEL-4-Test named[2572]: zone examplezone.com/IN:
sending notifies (serial 9909783)
May 23 16:38:58 RHEL-4-Test named[2572]: received notify for zone
'examplezone.com'
May 23 16:38:58 RHEL-4-Test named[2572]: zone examplezone.com/IN:
transferred serial 9909784
May 23 16:38:58 RHEL-4-Test named[2572]: zone examplezone.com/IN:
sending notifies (serial 9909784)
May 23 16:40:01 RHEL-4-Test crond(pam_unix)[2674]: session opened for
user root by (uid=0)
May 23 16:40:01 RHEL-4-Test crond(pam_unix)[2674]: session closed for
user root
May 23 16:50:01 RHEL-4-Test crond(pam_unix)[2874]: session opened for
user root by (uid=0)
May 23 16:50:01 RHEL-4-Test crond(pam_unix)[2874]: session closed for
user root
May 23 16:52:13 RHEL-4-Test named[2572]: received notify for zone
'examplezone.com'
May 23 16:52:13 RHEL-4-Test named[2572]: zone examplezone.com/IN:
transferred serial 9909785
May 23 16:52:13 RHEL-4-Test named[2572]: zone examplezone.com/IN:
sending notifies (serial 9909785)
May 23 16:53:28 RHEL-4-Test named[2572]: received notify for zone
'examplezone.com'
May 23 16:53:29 RHEL-4-Test named[2572]: zone examplezone.com/IN:
transferred serial 9909786
May 23 16:53:29 RHEL-4-Test named[2572]: zone examplezone.com/IN:
sending notifies (serial 9909786)

At 16:54, the zone was still at version 9909782 and 16:56 the zone
updated to 9909786. So,
in this case, it took about 18 minutes to update. 

Thanks,
Casey