achieving failover with 2 primary name servers?

[Rob Mortimer]

On Mon, 20 Oct 2003 00:08:06 -0700 (PDT), Ori Tend
<ori_tend at yahoo.com> wrote:

>Hi All,
> 
>Trying to achieve a simple failover, I think of the following:
>Have 2 dns servers for my domain at the registrar.
>Both would act as a primary server for the domain.
>DNS1 will answer requests, and delegate www.domain.com to first ip - which is hosted on the same box as DNS1.
>DNS2 will answer requests, and delegate www.domain.com to second ip - which is hosted on the same box as DNS2.
> 
>The rational is that if a resolver can't reach any of the DNS servers (either DNS1 or DNS2), it's most likely won't be able to reach the ip's that are hosted on box1 and box2 respectively as well, due to a box failure.
>So I assume that in case of a failover scenario, box1 will not be reached- therefor, the client resolver will try DNS2, which will reply with the ip of the apache placed on box2- and that's how a failover will be achieved.
> 
>The only drawback I can think of is that a zones would have to be transfered manualy, when a zone is changed, but sine i change the zones rarely, it's not that much of a hassle.
>Can anyone point other issues? Will it even work?
> 
>Thanks!
>
>
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My understanding is your name-servers are declared when you register
the domain.

You have one primary that propagates to the secondary(s).

If the primary dies the secondary(s) still have a full set of records
and vice versa.

If the primary dies you must get it going before you make any DNS
changes or re-configure a the remaining servers until you sort the
problem out.

If a DNS server does not respond the client will simply try the next
on the list. So long as one server is live and answering everything
will work.

Robert