zone transfer refresh interval

[Chris Murdoch]

Im looking for a way to reduce the zone transfer refresh interval on a
secondary zone

I have a windows 2000 server, which is the primary for it's own domain zone,
and a secondary for another zone which is hosted on a unix server.
The primary zone is active directory integrated.

Normally you go to the SOA tab on the properties of the zone, where you can
customize the Refresh Interval for a Zone.
With my secondary my tabs are greyed out.

Is this normal for a secondary ?
Can I customize the interval in the registry, or does anybody know how to do
it ?

best regards
Chris

 

[Kevin D. Goodknecht [MVP]]

In

Im looking for a way to reduce the zone transfer refresh interval on a
secondary zone

I have a windows 2000 server, which is the primary for it's own
domain zone, and a secondary for another zone which is hosted on a
unix server.
The primary zone is active directory integrated.

Normally you go to the SOA tab on the properties of the zone, where
you can customize the Refresh Interval for a Zone.
With my secondary my tabs are greyed out.

Is this normal for a secondary ?

This is normal, these settings are inherited from the primary zone.

Can I customize the interval in the registry, or does anybody know
how to do it ?

You do it on the SOA tab on the primary (or in this case on the AD
Integrated zone.)

 

[Chris Murdoch]

In

This is normal, these settings are inherited from the primary zone.


You do it on the SOA tab on the primary (or in this case on the AD
Integrated zone.)

The Refresh Interval on the SOA on the Primary is already set to a different
time from the Refresh Interval on the SOA of the Secondary.
Changing the Refresh Interval on the Primary does not appear to make any
difference (in the GUI) to the default interval (which is still greyed out
at 3 hours)

 

[Kevin D. Goodknecht [MVP]]

In

The Refresh Interval on the SOA on the Primary is already set to a
different time from the Refresh Interval on the SOA of the Secondary.
Changing the Refresh Interval on the Primary does not appear to make
any difference (in the GUI) to the default interval (which is still
greyed out at 3 hours)

The secondary will be greyed out, it is a read only zone. Make sure you have
zone transfers enabled to the secondary and that zone transfers are working.

 

[Chris Murdoch]

snip

The secondary will be greyed out, it is a read only zone. Make sure you have
zone transfers enabled to the secondary and that zone transfers are working.

Kevin - thanks for all your suggestions so far...

My Secondary Zone is a zone hosted Primarily on one of our Unix Servers.
(which is a seperate domain from the one that the windows 2000 server hosts
as it's own primary)
I was working under the opinion that the Windows DNS Server requests the
Zone transfer from the Primary (Unix) Server at the requested intervals
listed on the SOA tab (hence me trying to change this)
Am I getting this wrong ?

My zone transfers (from unix to windows 2000) work pretty well, so the
windows dns server is in fact getting zone updates from the unix server -
just not quickly enough for some of the specific things that happen here.

regards
Chris

 

[Kevin D. Goodknecht [MVP]]

In

snip
Kevin - thanks for all your suggestions so far...

My Secondary Zone is a zone hosted Primarily on one of our Unix
Servers. (which is a seperate domain from the one that the windows
2000 server hosts as it's own primary)
I was working under the opinion that the Windows DNS Server requests
the Zone transfer from the Primary (Unix) Server at the requested
intervals listed on the SOA tab (hence me trying to change this)
Am I getting this wrong ?

My zone transfers (from unix to windows 2000) work pretty well, so the
windows dns server is in fact getting zone updates from the unix
server - just not quickly enough for some of the specific things that
happen here.

You can set the Win2k to notify the secondary to do a zone transfer, then
they happen pretty quickly. But depending on the DNS version on the Unix,
which I assume is BIND it may not be capable of fast zone transfers. In that
case you should check the option on the advanced tab "BIND Secondaries"

 

[Chris Murdoch]

You can set the Win2k to notify the secondary to do a zone transfer, then
they happen pretty quickly. But depending on the DNS version on the Unix,
which I assume is BIND it may not be capable of fast zone transfers. In that
case you should check the option on the advanced tab "BIND Secondaries"

Kevin - I already have BIND secondaries ticked, because, as you assumed
correctly, our version of BIND is old.
I wasn't sure what you meant about the W2K Notifying the Secondary though.

The Primary for this domain in question is held on a Unix server

 

[Jonathan de Boyne Pollard]

CM> With my secondary my tabs are greyed out.

Well, of course. Modifications to the DNS data for that
"zone" may only be made on the "master".

<URL:http://homepages.tesco.net./~J.deBoynePollard/FGA/dns-database-replication.html>

CM> Can I customize the interval in the registry,

No.

CM> does anybody know how to do it ?

Yes.

 

[Jonathan de Boyne Pollard]

CM> I was working under the opinion that the Windows DNS Server
CM> requests the Zone transfer from the Primary (Unix) Server at
CM> the requested intervals listed on the SOA tab (hence me trying
CM> to change this) Am I getting this wrong ?

No. But for some reason you are not trying to make your desired changes to
the "zone" data in the correct place. Change the data on the "master".

 

[Kevin D. Goodknecht [MVP]]

In

Kevin - I already have BIND secondaries ticked, because, as you
assumed correctly, our version of BIND is old.
I wasn't sure what you meant about the W2K Notifying the Secondary
though.

The Primary for this domain in question is held on a Unix server

I'm confused now or you are, because this is from your original post, it
plainly states the Win2k is the primary.

I have a windows 2000 server, which is the primary for it's own
domain zone, and a secondary for another zone which is hosted on a
unix server.

As for zone trasfers from the Unix BIND primary to other secondaries, BIND
does not automatically increment it zone serial, until the zone serial is
incremented the secondaries are unaware of changes to the zone and will not
do a zone transfer. Increment the BIND serial when ever you change the zone.

 

[Chris Murdoch]

I'm confused now or you are, because this is from your original post, it
plainly states the Win2k is the primary.

Apologies if my original problem description was misleading...
My windows 2000 server is a Primary (for it's own domain) (which works fine)

It is also a secondary (for the unix domain).
It is the Unix domain that I am trying to keep up-to-date with.
Being a seondary server, then I can't change the info on the SOA tab, but I
need to keep the secondary as up-to-date as possible - hence me trying to
find a way to make this update quicker...

As for zone trasfers from the Unix BIND primary to other secondaries, BIND
does not automatically increment it zone serial, until the zone serial is
incremented the secondaries are unaware of changes to the zone and will not
do a zone transfer. Increment the BIND serial when ever you change the zone.

Our Unix Admin increments this, and we do get the zone transfers. Windows
works fine at this, it just doesn't update it fast enough.

 

[Kevin D. Goodknecht [MVP]]

In

<snip>

Apologies if my original problem description was misleading...
My windows 2000 server is a Primary (for it's own domain) (which
works fine)

It is also a secondary (for the unix domain).
It is the Unix domain that I am trying to keep up-to-date with.
Being a seondary server, then I can't change the info on the SOA tab,
but I need to keep the secondary as up-to-date as possible - hence me
trying to find a way to make this update quicker...

Oh OK. You will have to make SOA change on the zone in the BIND DNS I'm not
sure that if you have Dynamic updates on the BIND if it will automatically
increment the serial. I know that if you manually update BIND the serial has
to be manually incriminated. That is a problem with BIND because if you make
a change and forget to increment the serial, a zone transfer won't happen
until the zone expires. You would probably be best to post this question in
a NG for BIND.