To add a forward master zone (also known as a primary master), click the New button, select Forward Master Zone, and enter the domain name for the master zone in the Domain name text area.
A new window as shown in Figure 2-1 will appear with the following options:
Name — Domain name that was just entered in the previous window.
File Name — File name of the DNS database file, relative to /var/named. It is preset to the domain name with .zone appended to it.
Contact — Email address of the main contact for the master zone.
Primary Nameserver (SOA) — State of authority (SOA) record. This specifies the nameserver that is the best resource of information for this domain.
Serial Number — The serial number of the DNS database file. This number must be incremented each time the file is changed, so that the slave nameservers for the zone will retrieve the latest data. The Bind Configuration Tool increments this number each time the configuration changes. It can also be incremented manually by clicking the Set button next to the Serial Number value.
Time Settings — The Refresh, Retry, Expire, and Minimum TTL (Time to Live) values that are stored in the DNS database file. All values are in seconds.
Records — Add, edit, and delete record resources of type Host, Alias, and Name server.
A Primary Nameserver (SOA) must be specified, and at least one nameserver record must be specified by clicking the Add button in the Records section.
After configuring the Forward Master Zone, click OK to return to the main window as shown in Figure 1-1. From the pulldown menu, click Save to write the /etc/named.conf configuration file, write all the individual zone files in the /var/named directory, and have the daemon reload the configuration files.
The configuration creates an entry similar to the following in /etc/named.conf:
zone "forward.example.com" { type master; file "forward.example.com.zone"; }; |
It also creates the file /var/named/forward.example.com.zone with the following information:
$TTL 86400 @ IN SOA ns.example.com. root.localhost ( 2 ; serial 28800 ; refresh 7200 ; retry 604800 ; expire 86400 ; ttl ) IN NS 192.168.1.1. |