named.conf and zone files

[latcarf]

I have been reading a document about securing Bind and it disusses the use of views, internal and external. I noted the zones in named.conf are the same with the exception of the file.

Can anyone tell me what the difference is between an internal zone file and a external zone file for the same domain?

I have Googled for a couple days with no luck on examples. The closest guess I have is that the external zone file does not contain A records for network computers.

One other question... I am building two servers on two different machines. One will be primary DNS and mail with www and FTP. The other will be secondary DNS and mail. Is a reverse zone not needed in the secondary for the domain/nameserver?

[jimmyjames]

Is a reverse zone not needed in the secondary for the domain/nameserver?

As far as I know - yes!

Jimmy

[latcarf]

Thanks Jimmy :)

I may have found the answer to the first question also. I went to the BIND Manual and it does discuss "view". It does not give a specific zone file example for "internal" and "external" but it did show a snippet of name.conf for "view". The internal/external file declared in the zone(s) for mydomain.com in their snippet have the same name.

This leads me to believe the file used for the mydomain.com zone is the same for internal/external. Hoping I am learning something as I muddle through this I guess the views style mainly keeps anyone not declared in the acl {trusted} from generally wandering around your system.

I think that is why learning about DNS files has been the hardest to learn. I have googled many sites (I mean lots of sites!) and there are no two examples the same. I have pretty much figured out the RRs but which ones to use and not use has been the hardest part. It can be quite confusing sometimes. e.g. all examples found on the internet for name.conf in view have a different file name for the internal and external mydomain.com zone.