I would imagine that all InterWorx CP users and *nix users would like to collectively slap me across the face for asking this question. Is it possible to use a windows 2000/2003 server to handle the seconday DNS?
[SIZE=2][/SIZE]
[SIZE=2]I’m having a problem with intermittent DNS issues, and would like to enable a secondary DNS (the only other servers i have are FreeBSD 4.8 and Win2000) for redundancy.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=2]
Thanks,
[SIZE=2]Brian[/SIZE][/SIZE]
Yes, it should work fine. We use a secondary DNS service ($50/yr), and do not use the primary DNS server at all (publically speaking). Instead, the secondary DNS polls the primary for the records. InterWorx manages the DNS, and the secondary servers talk to the public. This is called a “hidden master” setup.
Pros
If your server goes offline, the secondary servers are likely still online and will continue to serve your DNS. The effect on the end user is they receive a “website timed out” instead of “that name does not exist” message.
Cons
Since our secondary DNS uses BIND, you have to manually tell them about each domain that InterWorx is serving. That is because BIND cannot ask for “all” domains, but can ask individually. This only works at all because TinyDNS supports BIND’s protocol.
The solution
I need to find a secondary DNS service that is running TinyDNS. If the secondaries are running TinyDNS as well, then the primary TinyDNS can package all the zones into a tarball and upload it to all the secondaries. That would be completely effortless, but I have unfortunately only found affordable secondary services running BIND.
I suspect you will have to manually tell your secondary DNS servers about your zones, but it will work.