bind9: automatically generate reverse zone file?

[José Enrique Díaz Jolly]

On Thu, 21 Aug 2003, Jan Harnisch wrote:

=>Hi all,
=>
=>sorry, this is probably a quite stupid question, so I am also thankful
=>for every documentation or RTFM you can point me to.
=>Is there any way to have the reverse zone automatically generated when
=>changes to the zone file are made? As far as I understand things up to
=>now, having to edit both files simply provokes unnecessary errors, but
=>probably I am simply missing something.
=>Thanks for all tips (and for all kicks in the ass..),


Well, I would say that it is only possible if you may write your own scripts!

From my point of view, reverse zones and "forward" zones are not in a relation
1 to 1 as for say I would automate the process. Once I had 48 entire C
classes, but the only automatic process was the creation of the unused records
for reverse records. I used to use each revers record forward record address
in hec, thus 192.168.12.1 was C0A80C01.my.domain.

As I used the records I assigned the Canonical Name for each host to be
reversed from IP address to hostname.

If your question is about Bind's capabilities to do so, the answer is easy: NO
And a more difficult question is: Why it should do so?




--

-- 'Tis true; there's magic in the web of it. --Othello (III.iv.69) ---

The river is within us, the sea is all about us.
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José Enrique Díaz Jolly e-mail: ***@podernet.com.mx
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@(#) $Id: signature,v 1.4 2003/04/18 21:38:39 enrique Exp $

[Jan Harnisch]

Hi José,

Post by José Enrique Díaz Jolly
Well, I would say that it is only possible if you may write your own scripts!
From my point of view, reverse zones and "forward" zones are not in a relation
1 to 1 as for say I would automate the process.

OK, I'm beginning to understand the problem...

Post by José Enrique Díaz Jolly
If your question is about Bind's capabilities to do so, the answer is easy: NO

Glad I didn't miss something here :-)

Post by José Enrique Díaz Jolly
And a more difficult question is: Why it should do so?

Well, in my case the setup is really simple, so the 1 to 1 relation is
everything I need. But I can understand that there is no automatism
built into bind if it is not universally applicable.
In the meantime, I have found a perl script at www.mkrdns.org that might
suit my needs; at least I'll try it and see what happens...
Greetings & Thanks,

Jan

[Eric Robibaro]

You might want to look into mkrdns which has a system(not a perfect
one, but it works) to do just what you want with regular bind text
files. It's not a part of bind, but it will read bind's config and
apply reasonable guesses, and a set if include/excludes, so your
reverse dns will make sense after some effort
(now if only I had the time to finish my hack so it takes up the /32
networks my network provider makes me use)
On Thu, 21 Aug 2003 21:35:53 +0200, Jan Harnisch

Hi Kevin,
and thank you for your answer.

No, BIND has no way to automatically generate the reverse zone files.

Whew... so at least, I didn't overlook something.

Among other things, it would have to know your local convention for how
to deal with multiple A records pointing to the same IP address.

Ahaa, didn't think about that. Thank you.

Generally speaking, forward/reverse synchronization is something that is
handled with whatever frontend/middleware tool you use for maintaining
DNS.

Hmm, sorry for slowly getting off topic, but do you know about any
recommendable tool for doing this? Here I have an LDAP server, so I had
a short look at ldap2dns, but I would prefer a more simple, text-file
based solution, such as having both databases generated by a script
based on a hosts file or similar. I am trying to make my DNS server
machine as foolproof as possible, so attaching other complex software
isn't my preferred way to go; I just want to eliminate inconsistencies
with the lowest possible effort.
Greetings & Thanks,
Jan

[Nico Kadel-Garcia]

Post by Eric Robibaro
You might want to look into mkrdns which has a system(not a perfect
one, but it works) to do just what you want with regular bind text
files. It's not a part of bind, but it will read bind's config and
apply reasonable guesses, and a set if include/excludes, so your
reverse dns will make sense after some effort
(now if only I had the time to finish my hack so it takes up the /32
networks my network provider makes me use)

??? It seemed to work fine for *me*....

[Morris Seals]

Jan,
Yes there is an easy way to get a one to one
forward to reverse correlation for BIND. It is a
piece of software called: DNS Boss. The Web site
is-
http://www.dnsboss.com
and it will automatically generate your
/etc/named.conf file and all forward and reverse
maps with a one to one correlation of forward to
reverse. It has a Web User Interface, or an easy
to use X interface, or you can do it from the
command line.

-Morris Seals
DNS Boss Inc.
http://www.dnsboss.com
+1.720.339.1147

Post by José Enrique Díaz Jolly
Hi all,
sorry, this is probably a quite stupid question, so I am also thankful
for every documentation or RTFM you can point me to.
Is there any way to have the reverse zone automatically generated when
changes to the zone file are made? As far as I understand things up to
now, having to edit both files simply provokes unnecessary errors, but
probably I am simply missing something.
Thanks for all tips (and for all kicks in the ass..),
Jan

[Nico Kadel-Garcia]

Hi Kevin,
and thank you for your answer.

No, BIND has no way to automatically generate the reverse zone files.

Whew... so at least, I didn't overlook something.

Take a look at www.mkrdns.org for a very sweet little tool for doing
exactly that job. You'll have to set the SOA records yourself the first
time, but it nicely generate the PTR records and updates the serial
number correctly, which are the painful parts.

Among other things, it would have to know your local convention for how
to deal with multiple A records pointing to the same IP address.

Ahaa, didn't think about that. Thank you.

The mkrdns tool follows directives stashed in comment lines in
/etc/named.conf. Again, very sweet little system. I just wish it would
autogenerate the entire files, for adding and removing reverse zone files.

Generally speaking, forward/reverse synchronization is something that is
handled with whatever frontend/middleware tool you use for maintaining
DNS.

Hmm, sorry for slowly getting off topic, but do you know about any
recommendable tool for doing this? Here I have an LDAP server, so I had
a short look at ldap2dns, but I would prefer a more simple, text-file
based solution, such as having both databases generated by a script
based on a hosts file or similar. I am trying to make my DNS server
machine as foolproof as possible, so attaching other complex software
isn't my preferred way to go; I just want to eliminate inconsistencies
with the lowest possible effort.
Greetings & Thanks,

Webmin, www.webmin.org, to build the forward zones. *AVOID* webDNS, it's
amazingly bad and encourages people to edit by hand, then edit with
forms, and then only takes one set of changes. It also has no clue about
multiple A records and is butt-painfully slow.

Use the BIND "named-checkconf" and "named-checkzone" commands as well:
they're extremely helpful.