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I've tried searching for this online, but could not find an answer. We currently run a bind cluster with 1 master and 8 slaves in our infrastructure. One of the things I wanted to implement an automated way of doing updates instead of manually having to enter data into zone files. When I tested nsupdate, it looked like it would work wonders until I realized that once nsupdate is used, your updates can no longer be done manually. This is a deal breaker and I have not been able to implement this feature at all due to this limitation.

Is there anyway of reverting back and forth between the journaled database once you implement nsupdate and its text based editing?

Sven
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user1782878
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1 Answers1

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My apologies for quoting the manual verbatim, but the authors are probably better writers than I am https://ftp.isc.org/www/bind/arm95/Bv9ARM.ch04.html

The section on the journal database starts with:

All changes made to a zone using dynamic update are stored in the zone's journal file. This file is automatically created by the server when the first dynamic update takes place. The name of the journal file is formed by appending the extension .jnl to the name of the corresponding zone file unless specifically overridden. The journal file is in a binary format and should not be edited manually.

As you had already discerned. But the manual goes on with:

If you have to make changes to a dynamic zone manually, the following procedure will work:

  • Disable dynamic updates to the zone using rndc freeze zone.
    This will also remove the zone's .jnl file and update the master file.
  • Edit the zone file.
  • Run rndc thaw zone to reload the changed zone and re-enable dynamic updates.
HBruijn
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  • Thanks HBruijn. I swear I had read chapter 4 of the manual, but either I'm blind, or not well versed in reading comprehension. I'll have to try this in my lab and get a few other things worked out. Our system is tied to a git repo where we keep updates. I've seen code on GitHub that pulls data via AXFR queries for automatic updates, so will have to implement something like that as well. Thanks again for pointing out what I obviously missed. – user1782878 Feb 27 '19 at 15:26