bind 8.2.1

[Skip Montanaro]

    Barry> Someone posting a question in this group is most likely a network
    Barry> administrator, who should know how to make use of Internet
    Barry> resources to find answers to common questions.  But I guess I'm
    Barry> wrong, because this particular question gets asked 2-3 times a
    Barry> week in this group.

Agreed, though not everyone is a network administrator out of choice (myself
included).  I still think the fact that this one little change has tripped
up so many people suggests the change was not handled properly.

Perhaps bind upgrades have been so problem-free in the past that people
naturally expected no problems upgrading this time.  When I went from 4.9.7
to 8.1.2, I experienced no problems.  The zone file format was 100% backward
compatible.  The config file format changed, but the perl script provided
with the distribution took care of that.  I didn't have to diddle with the
generated named.conf file at all.

I just scanned through the CHANGES and README files that came with 8.2.1
looking for notes about the TTL change.  I saw nothing that would suggest
that $TTL is now required.  Perhaps something should be added to README that
indicates that.

My seat-of-the-pants experience with other packages is that if a new version
of a package breaks the published interface (I think zone files count as
part of the interface in this case) a change in the major version of the
package is warranted.  In reality, I had more difficulty upgrading from
8.1.2 to 8.2.1 than I did when going from 4.9.7 to 8.1.2.

So, to reiterate my position, I think the following changes are reasonable:

    a) The error message "No default TTL set using SOA minimum instead"
       should be somehow friendlier.

    b) The release notes for bind should indicate the new $TTL requirement
       in the zone file.

Just my observations.

Skip Montanaro | http://www.mojam.com/
skip at mojam.com | http://www.musi-cal.com/
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