Re: [cobalt-users] WildCard DNS

[Jeff Lasman <jblists@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Jens Kristian Søgaard wrote:

> Maybe I haven't followed this discussions thorougly enough; but what
> is it exactly that the "DNS and Bind" book says, that is bad about
> wildcard DNS records? (just give me the pagenumber, and I'll go look
> in my own copy of the book)

I know I've posted the page numbers more than once; it's at pp. 377-378.

(Here I am 481 messages behind and you've got me looking up things in
books that've been discussed before <wry grin>.)

> The only thing I see that is particularly bad about wildcard records
> is, that you have to understand them to use them. The use of wildcard
> records has some common pitfalls (as names that are already defined
> elsewhere, will not have the wildcards record applied to them - even
> if that's is what you want).

Which is exactly what the book points out.  Perhaps I oversimplify it a
bit on this list; frankly, the level of questions I see on this list;
I'm not sure it's a good place to teach more than a little but less than
a lot, if you know what I mean.  In DNS a little knowledge is definitely
dangerous; I err on the side of caution.  DNS has taken me years to
understand; I still marvel at people who think they can figure it out by
reading a few paragraphs in the Cobalt book and on this list.  Even
Cobalt reps have admitted (privately) that Cobalt DNS instructions leave
a lot to be desired.

> I use wildcard records some times, as they're quite useful -
> especially for MX records.

Yes, they are useful in MX; those are the examples in the book.

> But it can ofcourse also be applied to A records; which enables you to
> let customers have "unlimited subdomains", without having to setup any
> extra for each subdomain.

I'll let you read page 378 and tell us what you think <smile>.

> Another neat thing I use wildcard A records for, is easy searching.
> 
> Try going to this "site" for example:
> 
>         http://raq.g.udp.dk/
> 
> Or:
> 
>         http://phpmyadmin.f.udp.dk/

Cute!  I like it <smile>. Is putting search terms in DNS a good use of
Internet resources <smile, again>?

Jeff
-- 
Jeff Lasman <jblists@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
nobaloney.net
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