bind and style

Kevin Darcy kcd at daimlerchrysler.com
Thu Feb 1 23:11:17 UTC 2001


Frankly, I don't think trying to "prettify" zone files is a practical
long-term strategy. When (not *if*) you eventually go to using Dynamic
Update or some database-backend-integrated method for maintaining your zone
data, the actual format of the zone file becomes meaningless. In
architectural terms, the zone files become "output"s rather than "input"s --
just a backup file that the nameserver keeps around for reloads or restarts.

What I do for my users is provide a web-based "browse" utility that allows
them to "surf" through our internal namespace and formats zone data somewhat
nicely, e.g. separate displays for the SOA record, the nameservers for the
zone, child zones (as links), aliases in the zone, and "nodes" (i.e. A
records) in the zone. (I currently don't show other record types like MX or
SRV, but it wouldn't be that hard to add that if there was a call for it).
Since I've migrated to using Dynamic Update for all zone maintenance, my
actual zonefiles look like crap. But my users -- and even most of my
DNS admins -- don't need to know that, since their only visible interactions
with the DNS database is through web interfaces; either the "browse" utility
for viewing or the web-based maintenance frontend.


- Kevin

Jed Record wrote:

> Could anyone share some comments and/or examples for the style of zone
> files?  In the past I have tried to emulate the examples from the
> "Cricket Book" :-) (apologies to Paul), but I have since strayed somewhat
> and would like to find a consistant format which will not only adhere to
> proper syntax for the latest versions 8.2.3, 9.1 ... but be readable to
> the administrator(me) as well.  I know the answer is "that's up to you!"
> but I only manage a few hundred zone files and I know many people here
> have thousands to manage and may have some helpful hints...
>
> my current zone files look a lot like:
> --- start of zone file ---
> $TTL 900
> @               IN      SOA     ns1.5-20.org. jed.5-20.org (
>                 2001020100      ; serial
>                 21600           ; 6h refresh
>                 2700            ;45m retry
>                 1814400         ; 3w expire
>                 900 )           ;15m minimum
>
> ; ------------- DNS and Mail Servers for the Domain -------------
>                 IN      NS      ns1.5-20.org.
>                 IN      NS      ns2.5-20.org.
>                 IN      A       24.246.22.116
>                 IN      MX      10      mail.5-20.org.
>                 IN      MX      20      mail02.5-20.org.
>
> ; -------------   Host Specific Information Below   -------------
> larry           IN      A       24.246.22.118
>                 IN      MX      10      mail.5-20.org.
> curly           IN      A       24.246.22.119
>                 IN      MX      10      mail.5-20.org.
> moe             IN      A       24.246.22.120
>                 IN      MX      20      mail02.5-20.org.
>
> ; -------------       Canonical Name Mapping        -------------
> www             IN      CNAME   houseoflinux.com
>
> --- end of zone file ---





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