RE: [cobalt-users] redundancy how too....

[elmer@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx]

On Fri, 23 Mar 2001, rpaiz@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:

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	Perhaps I ought to throw our "manual setup" in as it might
give you some ideas.

	This is running on a slackware powered Dell server but the
ideas may help. I create a /var/db/UserName  directory for each
outfit we provide secondary DNS for. In the master named.conf file I
then use the directory option to tell named where to look for the
additional configurations files, ie:

   directory "/var/db";

 	The UserName, being their company/domain name. Then in
/etc/named/conf  I use the include command to give them an entirely
seperate named.conf file:

	include "Username/UserName.conf";

	The UserName.conf file is written sideways... that is, the
listing for each zone is stretched out towards the right all on one
line:

zone "domain.foo" { type slave; file "UserName/foo.Domain" ;
master { xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx; }; };

	Notice that the file name for the zone is backwards,
foo.domain instead of domain.foo - this results in all the zone
files for that UserName being alphabetically listed when you do an
ls - the result is that finding a zone file to delete or check out
is very very easy.

	I then whipped up a very simple shell script that takes two
arguments, the UserName and the domain name, writes the the zone
line above to the appropriate UserName.Conf file and restarts named
the moment after it does.

	The result is that one can add a secondary as fast as they
can type two words. Deleting one is as easy as opening the
appropriate UserName.conf file in vi, scrolling down to the
appropriate line and touching d twice...

	It's very simple. Virtually bullet proof and quite
effective. If whoever it is we're doing secondary for knows more
about DNS than I do and I'm absolutely certain I can trust them, I
set them up with a user account on the server and put their
UserName.conf file in their /home/UserName directory and give them
SSH access to it and a script which will restart named. Thus they
can then maintain their secondaries without our intervention.

	Technology is cool, but what while everyone is chasing it
we're providing primary and secondary DNS service for a whole lot of
users - without a hitch and in such a way that all of them can
easily deal with it.

	brent