Name server placement

McNutt, Justin M. McNuttJ at missouri.edu
Wed Nov 28 19:42:56 UTC 2001


Fellow DNS admins, I need your opinions.

I am in the process of doing some pretty major restructuring of DNS for
Mizzou (missouri.edu).  I'm looking at the WHOIS information for
missouri.edu and 128.206.0.0 and I see a lot of secondary name servers
listed that are outside my netblock.

Short Version:  The question is whether or not any of those are necessary,
IF I have another secondary in my network that I control.

Long Version:  I am trying to simplify the configuration and management of
our name servers, and these external servers represent trouble in several
different ways, from security to licensing (IP management software).  I'm
looking for a compelling reason to keep them before I get rid of them.

Consider that noc.missouri.edu (the one listed as Primary) is in our
"external" network.  Outside users are allowed to query this name server.
Another name server will soon be added to that same network that can serve
as the Secondary for outside users (both will technically be slaves to a
hidden master, but that's neither here nor there).

In the event that the Primary only fails, outside users will be able to
reach the Secondary.

In the event that neither the Primary nor the Secondary are reachable, it is
likely that none of 128.206.0.0 is reachable either (due to the structure of
our network).

All of the network switches and routers are monitored, and so are all of our
name servers.  Both reachability and responses to name queries are monitored
(in case the only problem is with the named daemon).  Both the network
infrastructure (L2 and L3) and the servers have been very stable, so we
don't anticipate a lot of problems in the first place.

Anyway, all comments and insight appreciated.

Thanks!

Justin McNutt
Network Systems Analyst - Expert
DNPS, Mizzou Telecom
(573) 882-5183

"It's a kind of magic."

"There can be only one!"



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