Root DNS Server fall-over from Master to Slave problem

[Sparro, Dave]

The first thing you have to be clear on is that DNS is _not_ a
Primary/Secondary failover type environment, it's a distributed Master/Slave
environment.  The only distinction  between a master and a slave is where
they get their information.  A master server for a domian gets its data from
a configuration file.  A slave gets its information from another server (It
doesn't even have to be a master server).

When you list the authorative name servers during a domain name
registration, that's all you're doing.  It's an unordered list of servers
that (should) have more specific DNS information for hosts in that domian.


Getting back th the SOA problems others have mentioned, the problem is as
they are set now, the slave servers are set to "forget" everything in the
domiain if they can't communicate with the master for about 40 minutes.

Dave


> -----Original Message-----
> From: tterrill at hotmail.com [mailto:tterrill at hotmail.com] 
> Sent: Sunday, February 24, 2002 9:58 PM
> To: comp-protocols-dns-bind at isc.org
> Subject: Re: Root DNS Server fall-over from Master to Slave problem
> 
> 
> 
{SNIP}

> The part that I'm still unclear on is what is suppose to happen with
> the master DNS server goes off-line. We had our backup server on-line
> and yet typing in the URL just got a message about the domain not
> being findable. Is there someting in our DNS record that stopped the
> user from finding the slave DNS server?
>