Monday, February 09, 2004
Mini DNS rant
I realize that Bind was first written in 1983 and that its continued existence must be a surprise to Paul Mockapetris, but still, would it have all that difficult to include some provisions in Bind such that you don't have to maintain two configuration files?
Basically, DNS information is stored in zone files (why was the configuration format for a particular instance of a DNS server codified up as a standard? But that's a rant for another time) which are referenced by a DNS server, like:
zone "conman.org" IN {
type master;
file "pri/conman.org";
};
Okay, but for backup DNS servers, you configure them as:
zone "conman.org" IN {
type slave;
file "sec/conman.org";
masters { 216.82.116.251; };
};
Hence, two configuration files you need to maintain. This is insane. Most sites I know simply copy all the configuration files to all the DNS servers and run them all as masters. Wouldn't it be easier to configure backup DNS servers as:
options {
slave-directory "/var/bind/sec";
accept-zones-from { 216.82.116.251; };
...
}
That would make my life (and I suspect, a whole bunch of other sysadmins' lives) all that much easier.
Then again, this functionality could already exist in bind for all I know.
I should probably check.
