Dynamic DNS

Kevin Darcy kcd at daimlerchrysler.com
Tue Aug 14 22:38:53 UTC 2001


Leonard Thompson wrote:

> Can someone supply me with a sample (named.conf, forward zone file, reverse
> zone file) for Dynamic DNS. I would like all my dhcp-users to be added to
> DNS.

The only named.conf difference is the presence of an "allow-update" clause in
the relevant master-zone definitions (and possibly also a key definition if
your DHCP server is capable of performing TSIG-signed Dynamic Updates). As for
zonefiles, once you enable Dynamic Update for a zone, named takes control of
the zonefile and formats it any way it wants, so it would be pointless trying
to show you what a "proper" zonefile would look like, since it'll just get
reformatted anyway.

Hopefully you realize that once you enable a zone for Dynamic Update, the only
reasonable way to make *any* updates to the zone is through Dynamic Update.
Maybe it's time to check out that "nsupdate" man page...

> The majority of the clients are Windows 98/NT/2000. I have read a
> number of articles that talk about using a subdomain for all the dynamic
> users to avoid overwriting server name entries.

I think mainly you've seen references to the (sometimes painful) integration
of Active Directory and BIND. Active Directory uses SRV records and due to the
way SRV record names are structured, it's fairly easy to segregate the
AD stuff from the "main" zones, e.g. _tcp.example.com can be delegated from
example.com.

If you're talking about letting a DHCP server write to your regular zones,
however, then you don't have much fine-grained control and you run the risk
that it will delete something important. How much do you trust your
DHCP server to be bug-free?

> For management purposes. We have one Master Cluster at our corporate HQ and
> all the remote sites contain Slave Clusters. What changes to this topology
> am I going to have to make to accomidate Dynamic DNS?

Well, it kinda depends on what you mean by "cluster". That term has different
meanings in different contexts or even to different people.


- Kevin





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