Version Number for old Bind installations

[Barry Margolin]

In article <skcjvn3th5181 at corp.supernews.com>,
Jack Barnett <jbarnett at axil.netmate.com> wrote:
>bash-2.00$ /usr/sbin/nslookup
>
>Default Server:  localhost
>Address:  127.0.0.1
>
>> set class=chaos
>> set type=txt
>> version.bind
>
>Server:  localhost
>Address:  127.0.0.1
>
>*** localhost can't find version.bind: Server failed
>>
>---------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>Hi,
>
>A couple questions here for everyone if someone would be kind enough to
>answer.
>
>1) I know the version of Bind they have install is old, really old and was
>planning to upgrade it.  I think it is in the 4.* series but not sure what
>specific version (it has the old style syntax), but the info in the FAQ
>about getting the version number doesn't seem to work.  Am I doing something
>wrong, or is getting the version number handled different in the 4.x series?

The version.bind hack was added in 4.9.5.  Before that, to get the version
you can either use "strings named" or look in the log file when named
starts.

>2) I plan to upgrade to BIND Version 8.2.2 patchlevel 5 (Released November
>12th, 1999).  This is the one that they have listed as stable on secure on
>the web page.  What I was wondering is, first both DNS servers are old and
>have different syntax,
>
>2a)  is there an easy way (ie: anyone have a perl script) that will parse
>the old named db files into a format that  is compatible with the newer bind
>version?  There is a lot of domains between the two servers (like 250+) and
>everyone (about 10 people over the years) has used there own "style" about
>doing things, so basically it is a complete fscking mess in the
>/usr/local/named directory...

The only change to db file syntax is that now you have to use $TTL
directives to set the default TTL, instead of using the MinTTL field in the
SOA record.  It should be simple for you to write a script that adds $TTL
lines at the beginning of each file.

The file whose syntax has changed drastically is the main configuration
file (named.boot in BIND 4, named.conf in BIND 8).  BIND 8 comes with a
script named-bootconf that will convert your old file.

>3) The primary server we use for primary DNS and secondary server for
>secondary DNS.  What I wanted to do, is upgrade the secondary DNS to the
>newer version of bind to find any problems that might occur when upgrading,
>and also if any problems do happen, hopefully it won't be as noticeable to
>the users if the secondary DNS is having problem, opposed to the primary
>server having problems.  The question is

Since no one other than you knows which server is primary and which is
secondary, you can't assume that the primary server is always queried
first (this is why we've changed terminology from primary/secondary to
master/slave -- it removes the incorrect connotation).

>3a) Will the new bind (8 series) be able to work with the older style DNS (4
>series) temporary without problems, or is there any known compatibility
>issues between the two of em?

It works fine.  We operate BIND 8 slave servers and many of our customers
are still using BIND 4 on their primaries.

-- 
Barry Margolin, barmar at genuity.net
Genuity, Burlington, MA
*** DON'T SEND TECHNICAL QUESTIONS DIRECTLY TO ME, post them to newsgroups.
Please DON'T copy followups to me -- I'll assume it wasn't posted to the group.