LinuxSA Mailing list archives

  From: David Lloyd <lloy0076@rebel.net.au>
  To  : Andrew Reid <andrew.reid@plug.cx>
  Date: Sun, 08 Apr 2001 12:12:45 +0930

Re: BIND 8/9 Compatibility

Andrew!

The zone configuration file format is set by RFC's so I doubt they'll
change, however BIND 9's configuration options will probably be
enhanced. From what I've seen at http://www.isc.org/ they'll be
enhancements as opposed to format changes. There is one thing that you
will want to watch out for, though.

BIND 9 is a total rewrite of BIND 8 from scratch. Paul Vixie says,
according to that web-site, that BIND 8 was becoming unmaintainable
hence the rewrite. Because of this, the web page says that:

[quote from http://www.isc.org/BIND/bind9.html]
BIND 9.1 is primarily a name server software distribution. In addition
to the name server, it also includes a new lightweight stub resolver
library and associated resolver daemon that fully support forward and
reverse lookups of both IPv4 and IPv6 addresses. This library is still
considered experimental and is not a complete replacement for the BIND 8
resolver library. Applications that use the BIND 8 res_* functions to
perform DNS lookups or dynamic updates still need to be linked against
the BIND 8 libraries. For DNS lookups, they can also use the new
"getrrsetbyname()" API.
[unquote]

Hence it wouldn't be advisable to replace BIND 8 totally at this point
of time. In other words, you couldn't just install BIND 9, remove BIND 8
and expect any of your compiled binaries to behave themselves sensibly.

[quote cf]
If you are upgrading from BIND 8, please read the migration notes in
doc/misc/migration.
[unquote]

The nameserver distribution isn't that large (in comparison to X for
example) and it would be worth carefully reading the mentioned document
to find out more. After all, it is the official one and can tell you
much more than I - and possibly we - can.

DSL

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