DNS update, when is the zone file updated ??

[Tilman Schmidt]

At 07:24 04.04.00 +1000, Mark.Andrews at nominum.com wrote:
> > The reason I'm concerened is that we still on occation do manual changes
> > to the zone files, and afterwards do a 'ndc reload zone', but I expect things
> > to break, if the zone file that we're editing is not up to date, or ??
>
>         Then unconfigure dynamic updates, reload, edit, reload, check logs
>         then reconfigure dynamic updates and reload if no errors reported.
>
>         Or just use nsupdate to perform the changes.

I have the same problem as I am planning to allow dynamic updates from
DHCP for a forward/reverse zone pair I currently maintain manually with
RCS. It is obvious that using nsupdate for manual changes to a dynamic
zone is the Right Thing. It does however appear a bit awkward to use for
everyday operation. I am also not altogether happy with losing the
formatting and comments in my zone files, and the version history and
backup features of RCS.

How do others handle that situation? Are there any neat front-ends to
nsupdate yet or should I get out my Camel book and hack one up myself?
I had a quick look in the contrib archive of BIND 8.2.2-P5 but didn't
find anything suitable.

One solution that comes to mind would be to maintain a database of
static hosts separate from BIND, make all changes to that database,
and have them automatically propagated to BIND via nsupdate. Has
anybody already tried something like that?

-- 
Tilman Schmidt          E-Mail: Tilman.Schmidt at sema.de (office)
Sema Group Koeln, Germany       tilman at schmidt.bn.uunet.de (private)