Installing and Administering Internet Services

86 Chapter 3
Configuring and Administering the BIND Name Service
Configuring a Secondary Master Name Server
Configuring a Secondary Master Name
Server
A secondary master server can operate in either of two ways:
• It can store the authoritative data in backup files on its disk. When
this type of secondary server reboots, it reads its data from the
backup files and does not have to rely on loading data from a primary
server. After it is booted, the secondary server will check with the
primary server to verify that its data is up to date.
• It can store the authoritative data in memory only. When this type of
secondary server boots, it always loads its data from a primary
master server.
This section explains how to configure a secondary master server in your
domain. It contains the following sections:
• “Creating Secondary Server Data Files via hosts_to_named” on page
86
• “To Create the Secondary Master Server’s Data Files Manually” on
page 87
• “To Set the Default Domain Name” on page 88
Creating Secondary Server Data Files via
hosts_to_named
1. If you want your secondary server to store its data in backup files on
its disk, run hosts_to_named on the primary server as follows:
/usr/sbin/hosts_to_named -z primary_server’s_IP_address
If you want your secondary server to always load its data from the
primary server, run hosts_to_named on the primary server as
follows:
/usr/sbin/hosts_to_named -Z primary_server’s_IP_address
2. If you ran hosts_to_named with the -z option, copy the file
boot.sec.save from the current directory on the primary server to
the /etc directory on the secondary server.