master and slave

[Joseph S D Yao]

On Mon, Jan 09, 2006 at 11:50:28AM -0500, Frank Y.F. Luo wrote:
> SOA record, right? I missed that one. Thanks
> 
> > -----Original Message-----
...
> > Is there a way that I can tell which NS for a domain is master 
> > and which is
> > slave by using nslookup, host or dig?


In short: no, not reliably.

The SOA record has whatever is put into it.  For some large number of
name servers around the world, it is complete garbage.  And the world's
DNS survives.

There IS no such thing as a master name server and a slave name server -
not to the client.  There are only peer name servers.  This is an
important point that is much overlooked.

There is nothing in a name server that makes it inherently master or
slave.  The oft-used terms "master name server" and "slave name server"
are misleading.  A name server may carry a (not "the") master copy of a
zone, or it may carry a copy of the zone that is slaved to another name
server's copy (and as you know, it may be slaved to copies on several
other servers, and none of those copies need be master copies
themselves).  The same name server may carry a master copy for some
zones, and may carry copies that are slaved to other servers' copies for
other zones.

Fair 'nuff?


-- 
Joe Yao
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