NOTIFY-triggered Auto-slaving (was Re: how to list ALL zones of my master server)

[Mark_Andrews at isc.org]

> Mark_Andrews at isc.org wrote:
> 
> >         If you want this write it up as a draft and submit it to
> >         the IETF.  The working group thought about this when we did
> >         NOTIFY but left it as a exercise for the future.  At the
> >         time we were worried about security and theft of service
> >         in addition to the meta data problem.  We also wanted the
> >         basic zone content updates to get through to RFC status and
> >         not to get bogged down in debate over what metadata needs
> >         to be tranmitted let alone how to do it.
> >
> >         TSIG can provide the security and through that protection from
> >         theft of service.  The rest is still a mess.
> 
> OK, Mark, try taking off your protocol-designer hat for a moment and put
> on your BIND-implementor hat. Given that TSIG-signed NOTIFYs are now a
> reality with BIND, without any protocol changes, RFCs or IETF/IESG action
> required, and therefore security is no longer the issue it once was,
> would it not be a reasonable feature request to have a BIND instance
> automatically slave zones upon receipt of a TSIG-signature-verified
> NOTIFY, if configured to do so by the administrator of said BIND instance
> and using metadata provided, perhaps in template form, by said
> administrator? It's a "halfway measure" only in the sense that we don't
> have a whole protocol by which a master can communicate metadata to the
> slave -- as you said, that's "still a mess" -- but just because we can't
> do *everything* does that mean we should do *nothing* to automate
> slave-creation? Is this an all or nothing proposition? I don't think so.
> I know there a lot of DNS admins out there -- I'm one of them, since this
> is one of the few things I haven't automated yet -- who want to eliminate
> the drudge work of constantly editing named.conf files, and would eagerly
> embrace a less-than-comprehensive solution to the problem.
> 
> 
> - Kevin

	I would review a patch for BIND 9 if you cared to implement it.

	Mark
--
Mark Andrews, Internet Software Consortium
1 Seymour St., Dundas Valley, NSW 2117, Australia
PHONE: +61 2 9871 4742                 INTERNET: Mark.Andrews at isc.org