2 Basic BIND questions...

[Barry Margolin]

In article <d7iai0$279n$1 at sf1.isc.org>, msis at bombersman.com wrote:

> G'day all,
> 
> I have two questions regarding configuration for bind 9. I want to be
> able to alias an outside host using bind. In my hosts file i have this:
> 
> 1.2.3.4   server   server.domainexternal.com
> 
> My domain however is inside my local network, whereas domain external
> is on the internet. I would just like to know where to put an alias for
> this server in my DNS configuration so that it has the same
> functionality as the hosts file.

Make your server authoritative for the zone named 
"server.domainexternal.com", and put an A record in that zone file.

> Secondly, i was wondering if there was a way to override the TTL that
> websites have for thier DNS records, i.e. google.com may have a 500
> second TTL, but that seems to be pretty quick and sort of negates the
> idea behind a caching nameserver. Is this possible?

No, and it's a bad idea.  When someone sets their TTL low, it's because 
they want to be able to change their records and have the changes 
propagate quickly.  This is necessary for high-availability services 
that need to be able to fail over to alternate addresses.  It's also a 
common technique to use in preparation for an upcoming renumbering: set 
the TTL low temporarily, so that when you make the changes the old 
records will be flushed from caches quickly.

-- 
Barry Margolin, barmar at alum.mit.edu
Arlington, MA
*** PLEASE post questions in newsgroups, not directly to me ***