[NTLUG:Discuss] Questions on DNS and /etc/init.d

[Michael Patrick]

On Tue, Jul 02, 2002 at 07:42:30AM -0700, Todd Slavinsky wrote:
> Question, though.  Should I reconfigure named on my
> main box to run exclusively as a caching nameserver
> now (it was authoritative for my domain previously)? 
> I'm running the perl script on reboot (more on that
> later) to update the IPs on everydns, so I don't think
> I need to store any lookup information.  I'm still a
> bit of a dimbulb in the DNS department, though, so
> please let me know if I'm misinformed.  
>

You do not HAVE to reconfigure to be only a caching server.  Now, if you do leave the server with records for your domain, then you will need to update both your internal server AND do the DNS update procedure at whoever is hosting your DNS on the outside world.
 
> Right now my personal FTP server and web server both
> reside on the same machine (the routing/firewall box -
> bad idea, I know).  If I was to move those services to
> different boxes, any idea how that would work?  Would
> I have all the A and MX records on everydns pointing
> to the main router box running named, and resolve
> things locally from there?
> 

If everydns is where clients from the outside world look to resolve your DNS info, then you would update everydns to have A records and MXs pointing to whatever IPs the services are running on.  If your local named is still authoritative for the domain, the you would need to update it as well (else when your internal clients query it for information it would get the old DNS info).

> Sorry if I didn't phrase that right.
> 
> Anyways, last question - I'm running Debian, and I do
> want to run the DNS perl client on reboot to keep my
> DNS records updated.  However, the DNS client doesn't
> follow the standard init.d practices of having {start,
> stop, restart} methods.  Should I install using
> update-rc.d, or is there a different way clients like
> this that I would like to be run should be set up? 
> I've done this in quick and dirty ways before, but I'd
> prefer to know a smarter/cleaner way to do it.
> 

I'm not familiar with the perl script in question, but I have spawned things from /etc/init.d/rc.local file, which runs toward the end of the boot sequence.

Michael