notify option does not work in Bind 9.x, is this a known bug?

[Jim Reid]

>>>>> "Steven" == Steven Job <list3 at wwwcrazy.com> writes:

    Steven> I'm also noticing a very strange behavior with the
    Steven> "also-notify" with a large amount of zones (the systems
    Steven> are not being sent the NOTIFY message).  This is making is
    Steven> virtually impossible to set up Bind on an enterprise level
    Steven> (using IP anycast) with a large amount of zones.

    Steven> Is there a suggested work-a-round (server configuration /
    Steven> topology)?

Yes. Switch off NOTIFY on all the servers except the master. On the
master, use an explicit also-notify{} list so that the NOTIFYs go to
all the servers in your anycast cloud. This list will of course
contain the real IP addresses of the servers, not their anycast
address(es). Or you could have a hierarchical NOTIFY scheme if there
are lots of servers: ie a stratum N server sends NOTIFYs to X stratum
N+1 servers and so on.

This makes sense because this sort of meta-data should not be in the
DNS. Of course that meta-date is part of the infrastructure. But it's
not necessarily visible as resource records, just like the list of
masters{} servers a slave might use is not visible. Remember too that
an anycast operator will want to keep internal operational details to
themself. There should be no need for external users to know or care
how many servers are in the anycast cloud or where they are located.
The whole point of anycasting is to allow the operator to add, remove
and relocate servers within the cloud without their customers and end
users needing to be aware of those changes.

    Steven> Or do most people go with Nominum's
    Steven> Authoritative Name Server when they want to use IP anycast
    Steven> (which I guess is what UltraDNS did with Nominum's
    Steven> previous product)?

You are a bit confused. In its wider context anycasting is a routing
trick to make the same IP address appear to be in many places at the
same time. Anycasting does not depend on the application protocol (ie
DNS) or an implementation of that protocol. Nominum's ANS has no
special hooks for anycasting. [Neither does BIND. Or NSD AFAIK.]
UltraDNS has their own DNS implementation which has an Oracle
back-end. UltraDNS does anycasting and I believe they use Oracle's
replication stuff to synchronise new zone data across its anycast
nodes. When Nominum's DNS hosting business, GNS, was sold to UltraDNS
the GNS customers were migrated to the UltraDNS platform. UltraDNS did
not acquire ANS and don't use that.