BIND 9.x and hint file

Jeremy C. Reed jreed at isc.org
Mon Aug 31 16:37:05 UTC 2009


On Mon, 31 Aug 2009, Fr34k wrote:

> I thought with some version of BIND 9, one no longer needed a root hints 
> file.
> I can't recall the details and my google searches are finding how to set 
> up a hints file (instead of suggesting this is, say, deprecated).
> 
> Can someone shed some light on this?

I am not sure what you are asking for. The ARM documentation says about 
"hint" zone:

	The initial set of root name servers is specified using a "hint 
	zone". When the server starts up, it uses the root hints to find a 
	root name server and get the most recent list of root name 
	servers. If no hint zone is specified for class IN, the server 
	uses a compiled-in default set of root servers hints.  Classes 
	other than IN have no built-in defaults hints.

The CHANGES entry is:

 701.   [func]          Root hints are now fully optional.  Class IN
                        views use compiled-in hints by default, as
                        before.  Non-IN views with no root hints now
                        provide authoritative service but not recursion.
                        A warning is logged if a view has neither root
                        hints nor authoritative data for the root. [RT 
			#696]

(That was in 9.2.0.)

The built-in hints are in the source code at ./lib/dns/rootns.c



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