Slaves as masters, and BIND8 NOTIFY

[Joseph S D Yao]

> Server "texas" is the primary master for all things American.
> 
> Server "london" is the primary master for all things Euro, but is the
> slave for all things American.
> 
> Server "yorkshire" is a slave to "london". It considers "london" to be
> it's master for all things, Euro and American.
> 
> So if someone in Europe needs info on a US machine, "london" does a
> zone-transfer from "texas". "yorkshire" also has the information, but it
> gets it second-hand from "london".
> 
> Now that I've installed BIND 8, a change to an American RR on "texas"
> causes a NOTIFY to be sent out, which "london" receives. The problem, of
> course, is that "london" doesn't NOTIFY "yorkshire".
> 
> I have "DNS & BIND, 3rd Ed.", and it states "BIND 8 slaves don't send
> NOTIFY messages unless explicitly configured to do so."
> 
> Okay, fine. How do I configure them to do so? I don't have to go around
> putting also-notify in each of the zones, do I?

Per the documentation, putting "notify" in your options causes your
servers, whenever a zone for which they are authoritative (master and
slave alike) changes, to send a NOTIFY to all servers listed in NS
records for said zone.

The "notify" option can also be set per-zone.

The "also-notify" option (zone only) is only needed for hosts that are
not listed in an NS record for the zone that has changed.

This is only per the documentation.  I have not (yet) done more than
glance at the NOTIFY code, or test this.  But there are warning
messages in the code about having "notify" options set for zones that
are neither master nor slave; so this supports the parallel handling of
this.

--
Joe Yao				jsdy at cospo.osis.gov - Joseph S. D. Yao
COSPO/OSIS Computer Support					EMT-B
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