rndc addzone|delzone: some questions

[Evan Hunt]

> 1. Is named 'deaf' during an `rndc addzone'? I don't think so, but I'm
>    finding it hard to determine definitely. I'm primarily concerned with
>    named being able to handle any NOTIFYs it gets.

The addzone task (like several other rndc commands) will temporarily
acquire exclusive control of the named process so nothing else can
happen at the same time.  I confess I don't know whether notifies
that arrive during this window would be dropped or queued... but my
guess is dropped.

> 2. When I `rndc addzone ... type "slave"; ...' named immediately picks
>    that up, transfers the zone and creates the specified file. However,
>    `rndc delzone', while it drops the zone from named, does not remove
>    the zone file from the file system. Is that a bug or was that
>    implemented intentionally?
> 
>    It seems a bit illogical to me that the zone file isn't removed from
>    the file system, but perhaps I'm interpreting 'delzone' too strongly?  :)

Delzone just means delete the zone from named, not delete the zone file
from the filesystem.  (And I reckon we can do a good deal more harm by
deleting files you wanted to keep than by leaving files for you to delete
yourself...)

> 3. If I direct `rndc addzone|delzone' to the same named instance from
>    multiple processes (from the same source IP address), is there any
>    danger of the .nzf file being corrupted?

No.  (Or, if so, it would be a serious flaw, and I haven't seen any bug
reports about that.)

--
Evan Hunt -- each at isc.org
Internet Systems Consortium, Inc.