the master root server, 12 slaves

[Michael Kjorling]

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The root servers are certainly no different in that aspect from any
other DNS servers - one is the master, the other is slaves. However,
as with any other zone, any one of the slaves can very easily be
promoted to master with a single word change in the name server's
configuration (in the case of BIND, other implementations may differ
but if it won't let you promote a zone from slave to master status,
it's broken IMHO).

I don't know exactly how the configuration looks on the root servers
(might even be a good thing if that information stays with the root
server administrators) but if they are all configured to query all the
others if something fails, promoting one to master in case of failure
on A should be easy.

I was surprised to find though that . has a one week expiry time - but
I am sure this has been dealt with appropriately. (And having
mechanisms for out-of-band communication between the root servers in
place is actually a requirement along with personell on call 24x7,
so...)


Michael Kjörling


On Feb 18 2002 09:29 -0500, linux at penguinpower.com wrote:

> I know thats theres like 13 root servers A to M..all over the world..
> But isn't one the MASTER, the other 12 SLAVES?
>
> If so, where is the root master server?
> Is it  the a.root-server.net ? previously  rs.internic.net?

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Michael Kjörling  --  Programmer/Network administrator  ^..^
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