[H-GEN] I was sittin' and wondering'

Greg Black gjb at gbch.net
Sun Nov 3 19:23:51 EST 2002


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"Rick Phillips" wrote:

| Fact!
| One should have two DNS servers for a domain or virtual domain(s).

That's actually an opinion, not a fact.  (I happen to share the
opinion, but it's still an opinion.)

| Question!
| Does the second DNS service have to have an identical bind.conf to the
| primary server with corresponding identical db.my.domain files?  If no, how
| does the setup differ?

Since there's no guarantee that the alternate server will be
running BIND (or the same version of BIND if it is running
BIND), there's no way to answer that question.

The answer to the real question is: all name servers for a
domain should give the same answers to the queries from any
specific host.

The way to do this is documented in the fine manuals and in the
many books on the subject.

| Fact!
| One should have a backup MX server.

This is another opinion.  It is much less widely held than the
earlier opinion (and I don't share it).  One good reason for not
using a backup MX, especially if it's not one you fully control,
is that you lose the ability to block spam -- block it at your
primary and it gets delivered to your secondary which then
delivers it to you.  Since you cannot correctly refuse to accept
delivery from your secondary, you're hosed.

| Question!
| How would the setup of this backup MX server differ from the primary MX
| server?

It would be setup to deliver the mail to the primary when that
machine became available.

Greg

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