Here we see the mandatory SOA record, the needed NS records. We
can see that he has a secondary name server at ns2.psi.net
. This
is as it should be, always have a off site secondary server as
backup. We can also see that he has a master host called land-5
which takes care of many of the different Internet services, and that
he's done it with CNAMEs (a alternative is using A records).
As you see from the SOA record, the zone file originates at
land-5.com
, the contact person is
root@land-5.com
. hostmaster
is another oft used address for
the contact person. The serial number is in the customary yyyymmdd
format with todays serial number appended; this is probably the sixth
version of zone file on the 20th of September 1996. Remember that the
serial number must increase monotonically, here there is only
one digit for todays serial#, so after 9 edits he has to wait
until tomorrow before he can edit the file again. Consider using two
digits.
@ IN SOA land-5.com. root.land-5.com. ( 199609206 ; serial, todays date + todays serial # 8H ; refresh, seconds 2H ; retry, seconds 4W ; expire, seconds 1D ) ; minimum, seconds NS land-5.com. NS ns2.psi.net. MX 10 land-5.com. ; Primary Mail Exchanger TXT "LAND-5 Corporation" localhost A 127.0.0.1 router A 206.6.177.1 land-5.com. A 206.6.177.2 ns A 206.6.177.3 www A 207.159.141.192 ftp CNAME land-5.com. mail CNAME land-5.com. news CNAME land-5.com. funn A 206.6.177.2 ; ; Workstations ; ws-177200 A 206.6.177.200 MX 10 land-5.com. ; Primary Mail Host ws-177201 A 206.6.177.201 MX 10 land-5.com. ; Primary Mail Host ws-177202 A 206.6.177.202 MX 10 land-5.com. ; Primary Mail Host ws-177203 A 206.6.177.203 MX 10 land-5.com. ; Primary Mail Host ws-177204 A 206.6.177.204 MX 10 land-5.com. ; Primary Mail Host ws-177205 A 206.6.177.205 MX 10 land-5.com. ; Primary Mail Host ; {Many repetitive definitions deleted - SNIP} ws-177250 A 206.6.177.250 MX 10 land-5.com. ; Primary Mail Host ws-177251 A 206.6.177.251 MX 10 land-5.com. ; Primary Mail Host ws-177252 A 206.6.177.252 MX 10 land-5.com. ; Primary Mail Host ws-177253 A 206.6.177.253 MX 10 land-5.com. ; Primary Mail Host ws-177254 A 206.6.177.254 MX 10 land-5.com. ; Primary Mail Host
If you examine land-5s nameserver you will find that the host names
are of the form ws_
number. As of late BIND 4 versions named
started enforcing the restrictions on what characters may be used in
host names. So that does not work with BIND-8 at all, and I
substituted '-' (dash) for '_' (underline) for use in this HOWTO.
Another thing to note is that the workstations don't have individual names, but rather a prefix followed by the two last parts of the IP numbers. Using such a convention can simplify maintenance significantly, but can be a bit impersonal, and, in fact, be a source of irritation among your customers.
We also see that funn.land-5.com
is an alias for
land-5.com
, but using an A record, not a CNAME record. This is a
good policy as noted earlier.