Difference between secondary and slave dns servers

[Sam Wilson]

In article <ejdjo5$d7l$1 at sf1.isc.org>,
 Mark Andrews <Mark_Andrews at isc.org> wrote:

> > smallpond wrote:
> > > voipfc wrote:
> > >   
> > >> What is the difference between secondary and slave dns servers?
> > >>
> > >> Are they synonyms or are there some subtle diffference between them?
> > >>     
> > >
> > > 1.4.4.2. Slave Servers
> > > The other authoritative servers, the slave servers (also known as
> > > secondary servers) ...
> > >
> > > from the bind documentation.
> > >   
> > Yeah, they're pretty much synonymous. If there's any subtle difference 
> > between the two, it's that "slave" is more often seen in a _relational_ 
> > context, i.e. one half of the "master/slave" relationship, whereas 
> > "secondary" is more often used when describing a whole infrastructure 
> > (although I have occasionally see the term "primary" being used as a 
> > synonym for "master").
> > 
> > Let's not forget, also, that a "slave" server can also serve as a 
> > "master" to other, downstream slaves, in a "multi-hop" architecture. So 
> > the use of the term "secondary" gets a little confusing at that point. 
> > What do we call the downstream slaves? "Tertiaries"? And the slaves 
> > downstream from those? Calling them all just "slaves" simplifies things.
> > 
> > - Kevin
> 
> 	Also some people thought that "primary" server got all the
> 	initial queries and the "secondaries" only got queries if
> 	the "primary" failed.
> 
> 	"master" / "slave" does not have the same conations.

Also the terms primary and secondary got overloaded when people started 
using them (they're in an RFC but I can't remember which one) for the 
first and subsequent entries in a stub resolver's list of servers.

Sam