Slight Difference between one DNS and Another

[Martin McCormick]

/dev/rob0 writes:
>When a zone file is loaded, $ORIGIN is implicitly set to the zone's 
>name. If a zone file has a "$ORIGIN ." line, everything thereafter 
>refers back to the root.

	Many thanks.  I looked again at the zone files for the DNS
that appends the domain name and one that doesn't.  Both haven't been
manually altered for probably over a year so have had plenty of time
to settle in to what bind likes to write after dynamic updates.

	Both zones start with:

$ORIGIN .

	Now, here's the start of the file that represents systems that
one can update without appending the trailing dot:

$TTL 43200	; 12 hours
normal.com		IN SOA	dns0.mydomain.net. martin.hotwater.anotherdomain.net. (
				753 ; serial
				3601       ; refresh (1 hour 1 second)
				900        ; retry (15 minutes)
				4838400    ; expire (8 weeks)
				300        ; minimum (5 minutes)
				)
			NS	dns0.mydomain.net.

	After that, the general name server data for the zone appear.

	The zone that likes to append the domain name if one leaves
off the trailing dot has a configuration that looks like:

$ORIGIN .
$TTL 3600	; 1 hour
different.net	IN SOA	dns0a.mydomain.net. martin.deadratsnogood4doorstops.net. (
				305575     ; serial
				3600       ; refresh (1 hour)
				600        ; retry (10 minutes)
				604800     ; expire (1 week)
				21600      ; minimum (6 hours)
				)
$TTL 43200	; 12 hours
			NS	dns0a.mydomain2.net.

	They pretty much look the same to me yet the one I label as
different is the only one out of about 4 domains I have set up that I
must always remember to append the dots.

	All the DNS's in question work perfectly as far as the public
is concerned.  I am curious as to what possible thing I did
differently on this one system that would cause this sort of behavior?
This might indicate some underlying problem that could come up to bite
one day, not to mention what it does if a substitute or coworker needs
to ever modify any data on the system.  consistency is best for all
concerned.

Martin McCormick WB5AGZ  Stillwater, OK 
OSU Information Technology Division Network Operations Group