Distributed Name Service (DNS) Management Operations Manual

DNS Configuration Files and Associated Processes
DNS Management and Operations
3–2 31258 Tandem Computers Incorporated
The DNS Database and
AUTOLOAD
The AUTOLOAD utility available from the DSNM applications simplifies the creation
of your DNS name database. AUTOLOAD creates OBEY files (command files) for use
with DNSCOM. These OBEY files can contain commands to add subsystem objects to
the database, delete subsystem objects from the database, or create groups, and other
tasks. AUTOLOAD does not generate commands for composites and composite types.
You must use DNSCOM directly to do this.
AUTOLOAD is particularly useful when DSNM is first being installed because it
automates most of the work involved in creating the DNS name database. For further
information about using AUTOLOAD with DNS, refer to the DSMS System
Management Guide.
DNS Configuration
Files and Associated
Processes
DNS allows you to have more than one DNS database on each system. Each database
has its own name manager, name exporter, and configuration file. A DNS database
together with its associated processes and configuration file is called a DNS
configuration. This can be useful, for example, in a large organization; each group can
create a custom DNS configuration, along with its own DNS processes and databases.
One configuration can be use for production and another for testing.
The DNS configuration is created using the INITIALIZE DNS command in DNSCOM.
Once created, a configuration is generally referred to using the process name of the
configuration’s name manager. If the name manager is not running, the name of the
configuration file is used.
By default, DNSCOM expects to deal with a configuration that has the following:
Configuration file: $SYSTEM.SYSTEM.DNSCONF
Name manager: $ZDNS
Name exporter: $ZDNX
The DNS configuration can replicate the definitions of aliases, composites, and groups
in remote DNS databases. For this replication to occur, the configurations for the two
databases involved must have the name process names for their name managers and
the same name for their name exporters. Although the name of the configuration files
for the two configurations need not be the same, managing the distributed
environment is simpler when the files do have the same name.
Where a configuration is replicated over several nodes, the name of the configuration
file need not be the same at each node. However, operating DNS in a network
environment is simpler if the files have the same names. See “Working With Different
DNS Configurations” in Section 6 for information about configuration files and name
managers.