what exactly is the zone name used for?

[Alex Miller]

> As for putting information of multiple zones into a single file,
> this is not a feature currently supported by BIND, and not likely to be,
as it would
> greatly complicate parsing. I note, however, that BIND 9 promises more
> choices of backend data stores, including databases. This should
> allow one to reap the same kind of benefits as having multiple zones in a
file.

I seem to have it working rather effectively. I have several domains
that are controlled by one file, called zone.inc
One change to it, let's say adding the CNAME ww2 will add that
CNAME for every domain that uses it.

Here is the sequence:

/etc/named.conf contains:

include "/var/named/named.inc";

/var/named/named.inc contains:
options {
        directory "/var/named";
};

zone "acmeconscience.org" in {
        type master;
        file "master/zone.acmeconscience.org";
};

zone "acmeconscience.net" in {
        type master;
        file "master/zone.acmeconscience.net";
};

zone "bannerclub.com" in {
        type master;
        file "master/zone.bannerclub.com";
};

zone "creativepeople.org" in {
        type master;
        file "master/zone.creativepeople.org";
};

zone "cybergood.org" in {
        type master;
        file "master/zone.cybergood.org";
};

zone "cybergood.net" in {
        type master;
        file "master/zone.cybergood.org";
};

zone "cybergod.org" in {
        type master;
        file "master/zone.cybergod.org";
};
zone "cybergod.org" in {
        type master;
        file "master/zone.cybergod.org";
};

zone "191.21.209.in-addr.arpa" in {
        type slave;
        file "slave/zone.209.21.191";
        masters { 209.21.191.2; 206.64.152.10 };
};

zone "0.0.127.in-addr.arpa" in {
        type master;
        file "master/zone.127.0.0";
};

zone "." in {
        type hint;
        file "root.hint";
};

For example, /var/named/master/zone.cybergood.net contains:
$INCLUDE master/zone.inc

And of course, zone.inc contains
@ IN SOA ns.acmeconscience.net. hostmaster.cybergood.net. (
                2000010681      ; Serial using datetime
                10800           ; Refresh after 3 hours
                3600            ; Retry after 1 hour
                604800          ; Expire after 1 week
                86400 )         ; Minimum TTL of 1 day

        ; Nameservers
        IN NS ns.acmeconscience.net.
        IN NS ns1.cybergood.org.
        IN NS ns.mercurian.com.
        IN NS auth01.ns.harvard.net.
        IN NS ns1.granitecanyon.com.
        IN NS ns2.granitecanyon.com.

        ; Mail Zones
        IN MX 10 acme.acmeconscience.org.
        IN MX 20 pop
        IN MX 30 smtp
        IN MX 40 imap

;       Responsible Person Records
;        IN RP hostmaster.cybergood.net. hostmaster

;hostmaster IN TXT "Alex Miller, Really Great Guy"


; Canonical Names
localhost IN A 127.0.0.1
acme IN A 209.21.191.17

; Aliases
ftp     IN CNAME acme.acmeconscience.org.
ns      IN CNAME acme.acmeconscience.org.
ns1     IN CNAME acme.acmeconscience.org.
ns2     IN CNAME acme.acmeconscience.org.
imap    IN CNAME acme.acmeconscience.org.
pop     IN CNAME acme.acmeconscience.org.
smtp    IN CNAME acme.acmeconscience.org.
telnet  IN CNAME acme.acmeconscience.org.
www     IN CNAME acme.acmeconscience.org.

I realize that there are problems with my setup
namely I am using CNAME records for MX records
and I don't have delegation of my static IP
so my reverse lookup is only to one A
address acme.acmeconscience.org but those
are separate issues from the one raised by your
question.

The zone "name" is how this zone information
applies it to a particular zone.

Alex Miller

> -----Original Message-----
> From: kcd at daimlerchrysler.com [mailto:kcd at daimlerchrysler.com]
> Sent: Thursday, January 06, 2000 6:36 PM
> To: comp-protocols-dns-bind at moderators.isc.org
> Subject: Re: what exactly is the zone name used for?
>
>
> Joseph Morrison wrote:
>
> > Hello all,
> >
> > If you have the following in your named configuration file:
> >
> > zone "aaa.com." {
> >         type master;
> >         file "named.aaa";
> > };
> >
> > Then what exactly is the "aaa.com." used for? Is it ONLY used to expand
> > abbreviations in the "named.aaa" file? Or is it used for anything else
> > (like considering itself authoritative only for the domain specified
> > after the zone keyword)?
> >
> > I'm considering including information for multiple domains in a single
> > "named.aaa" file, and using the name of the first domain after the
> > "zone" keyword. Is there any downside to doing that?
> >
> > I have a similar question for reverse mappings; if I want to provide
> > authoritative PTR records for multiple subnets, is it possible to put
> > them in a single zone file? And if so, what should be specified
> > immediately after the "zone" keyword?
> >
> > Thanks for any answers or pointers to information,
>
> Read RFC's 1034 & 1035 and also the _DNS_and_BIND_ O'Reilly book. The zone
> name is not just a syntactical convenience; it also defines where in the
> overall namespace hierarchy the zone is located. If you were to name your
> zone "bar.foo", for instance, your server could resolve names in
> that zone,
> but no-one on the Internet would be able to resolve them, since
> the Internet
> root servers know nothing about a "foo" top-level domain (or, if they do,
> they're not telling anyone about it  :-).
>
> As for putting information of multiple zones into a single file,
> this is not
> a feature currently supported by BIND, and not likely to be, as it would
> greatly complicate parsing. I note, however, that BIND 9 promises more
> choices of backend data stores, including databases. This should
> allow one to
> reap the same kind of benefits as having multiple zones in a file.
>
>
> - Kevin
>
>
>
>
>