What does it mean to be authoritative?

[Len Conrad]

At 03:52 20/10/00 +0000, you wrote:
>Is a nameserver authoritative for a domain when it has the records for that
>domain on its host

no, a nameserver is delegated with authority when the namserever host 
is listed in the delegation (NS) data of the domain's registration 
records.  ie, the NS records associated with a domain name and found 
in the root-servers.net.

>in which case a secondary server (slave) can be authoritative for 
>zones in cases where it has loaded those zones from a primary server?

master/slave role distinctions between ISC BIND nameservers has 
nothing to do with authority and delegation.

A slave NS is delegated with authority by the domain's delegation 
data, not by the the master NS.  master and slave NS's are equally, 
indistinguishably authoritative.

Len


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