Men and Mice

Can I make the domain name of my zone an alias?

> Hi Mr. Liu! I'm hoping you can help me out..!
>
> I am having a problem using CNAMES in a zone file running BIND 9.2.0rc8.
> I am basically hosting a domain, and I want to alias the entire zone to
> another server, whose IP changes often, so I would use a CNAME. The
> owner of the new server updates his A entry, so there isn't a problem.
>
> The zone in question is aquemini.net.db. The entries of consequence are:
>
> aquemini.net. 86400 IN SOA dns1.rtp.adtn.net. hostmaster.adtn.net. (
> 2001081415 ; serial
> 1800 ; refresh (30 minutes)
> 3600 ; retry (1 hour)
> 604800 ; expire (1 week)
> 3600 ; minimum (1 hour)
> )
>
> NS dns1.rtp.adtn.net.
> NS dns2.rtp.adtn.net.
> CNAME brad-x.com.
>
> Nslookup'ing yields:
>
> [adam@virga-x pri]$ nslookup -sil aquemini.net
> Server: 24.25.30.41
> Address: 24.25.30.41#53
>
> ** server can't find aquemini.net: SERVFAIL
>
> Now, this isn't working. Is it something that I am doing wrong, or is it
> a limitation of BIND 9 and it's new restrictiveness?

Unfortunately, you can't use a CNAME because aquemini.net already owns
an SOA record and two NS records. That means that the name aquemini.net
can't be an alias

> Is there a way to point a domain to another server using a name rather
> than an IP address? Is this where DNAMEs come in at?

Actually, no: a DNAME record like aquemini.net. IN DNAME brad-x.com.
would alias foo.aquemini.net to foo.brad-x.com, but wouldn't affect aquemini.net.

The only way to do this is to use an address record for aquemini.net, e.g.,

aquemini.net. IN A 64.228.80.230

If you need to change the address aquemini.net points to frequently, you could always use dynamic update.

Best Regards, and great book.

Thanks!

cricket