Setting up DNS Servers properly?

Swakoo · 01-23-2007, 09:34 PM

i see, i do hope you have a speedy recovery. but somehow I have this queer feeling you are enjoying the (free) time at home... hehe

I guess I will take the approach to storing my master DNS named.conf into my slave for now. What you guys mention about the other type of DNS server (caching etc) is still pretty much lost on me... but with time I can understand. Just that for now.. its the matter on hand.. which is resolved.

Oh speaking of which, another question:
Now with my sparkling new setup of the master/salve dns server, my slave is synching perfectly with my master. Good.

While you know my concern is IF the master goes down, but I did use the "file" option in slave, which saves the config to disk. So IF the master do go down, and my slave's config is still left as it is (to sync with the master), will it be smart enough to know master is gone, and just rely on the copy of zone file on the disk for dns queries for the time being, until the master comes back up?
Or are those zone files saved only valid for the "timeout" value?

And how do I toggle this timeout value: the "expire" value?

Thanks once again Jim, and chort!

JimBass · 01-23-2007, 09:56 PM

Yeah, i"m stuck within the apartment though, so what could be fun really isn't too much. Your wishes for a speedy recovery is appreciated however!

Say your master does go down, and it will be down longer than the expiration time value. What you would do is put the master's named.conf in place of the slave's. The zone files will already be there, so you just point the named.conf at the same zones, and the different named.conf will give the same answers, but they will never timeout.

The zones are kept for the time-to-expire value, which is in seconds, but tends to be long. It is the second to last number at the end of the SOA line (with the serial number). Most of my servers have an expire time of 1209600, which is 2 weeks.

Check http://dnsreport.com for a readout of how your DNS is configured.

Peace,
JimBass

Swakoo · 01-23-2007, 10:00 PM

ahh so implementing a master named.conf on the slave is all that matters... for the zone files to not expire? since the named.conf (from the master) states them as 'master'

Right?

thanks for the link.

ps: maybe you should get yourself a Nintendo Wii. Some form of "excercise" and fun for you indoor. Else... grab a pizza

or read a book.

JimBass · 01-23-2007, 10:09 PM

There is no difference between a master and a slave zone data wise. There isn't some magic in the zone files themselves, it is the named.conf that designates if it should propagate the changes to the zones out to the other slaves or not. You could just use the named.conf from the master, because the info is EXACTLY the same. The only thing to check is to be certain that the file location is correct. I saw you were dropping the zones into "zone/domain.com", so be certain that the master is pointing to that exact same file.

I'm good with the exercise, I hobble around on my crutches. I'm fairly good about books, but they have me on heavy duty pain killers that make reading books very difficult. I also rarely stay awake longer than 3 or so hours before they knock me out for a bit. That's how I easily stayed awake until 4 am my time, I basically woke up and started responding, and stayed up till the painkiller kicked in and took me down.

Peace,
JimBass

chort · 01-23-2007, 11:39 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Swakoo

While you know my concern is IF the master goes down, but I did use the "file" option in slave, which saves the config to disk. So IF the master do go down, and my slave's config is still left as it is (to sync with the master), will it be smart enough to know master is gone, and just rely on the copy of zone file on the disk for dns queries for the time being, until the master comes back up?
Or are those zone files saved only valid for the "timeout" value?

It will keep serving requests for "expire" number of seconds since the last time it refreshed from the master.

Code:

smtps.net       IN SOA  ns1.smtps.net. hostmaster.smtps.net. (
                                2007010801 ; serial
                                28800      ; refresh (8 hours)
                                300        ; retry
                                2419200    ; expire
                                3600       ; minimum (1 hour)
                                )

My expiration is set to 2419200 seconds, which I believe is the maximum recommended value.

paul_mat · 02-17-2007, 09:56 PM

I have a how-to on my website http://www.opensourcehowto.org for setting up DDNS(Dynamic Domain Name Server) and DHCP(Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol)

DDNS and DHCP
http://www.opensourcehowto.org/how-t...-and-dhcp.html

Swakoo · 02-21-2007, 03:19 AM

you have a pretty cool site there