root hints operation

[Grant Taylor]

In light of the upcoming H-root server changing addresses I wanted to 
confirm how BIND uses root hints.

It's my understanding that BIND has a compiled in version of the root 
hints -and- a root hints file that can easily be updated.  This 
information is used to prime named as it starts up in such as it takes 
an IP for one of the root servers and attempts a to query to update the 
root hint server name to IP mappings.  I believe that named will cycle 
through all of the IPs in the root hints file until it finds a server 
that it can query and update all of the root server names / IPs in 
memory.  From and then continues running with that updated information.

As such, I think BIND will continue operating with little, if any, ill 
effect if people don't update their root hints file immediately. 
(Though ideally people should update.)

Will someone take a moment and confirm, or correct, my understanding of 
how root hints work in BIND?



-- 
Grant. . . .
unix || die