Root servers

[Barry Margolin]

In article <mailman.806.1408112054.26362.bind-users at lists.isc.org>,
 schulz at adi.com (Thomas Schulz) wrote:

> I will add my $0.02. The named executable has the root information built
> in so that it can start up if there is no named.root file available.
> So, if you had no named.root file but did have the latest release of
> Bind then you would have the current data. If you do not update Bind
> the moment that a new version is released then you need a current
> named.root file. Just go get a new one from the server listed at the
> top of the old file.

One of the first things that BIND does after startup is contact one of 
the root servers that it knows about, either from its named.root file or 
the ones hard-coded into the executable, and ask it for the current list 
of root servers.

So you only really need to a named.root file if the executable is so old 
that none of the hard-coded IPs still work (that's unlikely to ever 
happen), or some of the IPs have been reassigned to untrusted servers (I 
expect that IANA takes care not to allow this).

-- 
Barry Margolin
Arlington, MA