I have a RedHat 7.1 box that we use for DNS in our System Engineering lab. We have a Windows 2000 box that handles DNS in our main office. The Microsoft Admin and I have been given the task of making both of our domains accessible to each other. I had originally made his domain my forwarder, so my domain could ping workstations on his domain via hostnames, but his workstations cannot ping my machines via hostnames.

The Microsoft Admin stated that he would not be able to make my domain a forwarder for his(my domain is technically the child), so he suggested that both domains be replication partners for each other. The Microsoft Admin has set up his DNS machine as a replication partner for my server, but I am having problems setting up my RedHat box as a replication partner for his. I do have a copy of A and NS records on my DNS server from the office domain, but I do not know what I need to type into /etc/named.conf. I tried typing in :

zone"mymachine.mydomain.com"{
allow-transfer {x.x.x.x;} ;
};
for my zone and his, but that did nothing. I also tried typing in:

zone "mymachine.mydomain.com" {
type slave;
file "master/mydomain.com";
masters {x.x.x.x;};
};
for both zones, once again, but to no avail. I am using BIND 8.x, which I am not sure supports multimaster replication or just does master-slave replication.

Any help I get will be greatly appreciated, and as always, make all smart a@@ comments funny, so that I may laugh as well!!

From your post I can not figure out the structure - please post the two domains you are dealing with. If you don't want to post the real names, then post examples that corelate to the names.

Example - if your domain is allunix.company.com and the W2k server is company.com then show it as allunix.mycom.com and mycom.com. From your post I only see the one domain since you use "mymachine" which suggest a host, not a sub-domain.

If you are looking to be a slave to the parent domain but a master of the sub-domain, then the parent needs to delegate the sub-domain to you. Look at delegation at Mr. DNS delegation question.
Once that is set up, then you can forward your request to the parent domain and everything should work correctly (since the parent will know that the sub-domain answers will come from your server). Also, your MS admin was correct - setting both servers to be forward to each other would set up a loop that would cause you to lose the function of looking up other domains (and possibly slow your network down too!)

If you are a completely different domain (hidden internally) then you have a different problem.

And, as Mr. DNS states on his page:

When you're down and troubled
and you need a helping hand...
Seek psychiatric help. I just do DNS

(That's the laugh for you)

Ha,ha,hah! Thanks for the laugh! By the way, do you think Mr DNS could tell me how to force replication from my side?

If you haven't bought or borrowed the "DNS and Bind" book from O'Reilly, Mr. DNS doesn't always answer the question (especially if your question can be found in the book). Hey, he needs to make a living too! DNS and Bind book

If you first search through the FAQ section on his site, you may find answers to many of your questions. If you post back the info asked for, myself or one of the other admins helping on this site can probably get you through this.

The 2 domains are jodyx.com( the MS admin) and lab.jodyx.com(Aliases are being used to protect the innocent). I went ahead and used that first Mr DNS link that you gave me and had the MS admin put in NS and A records for my name server. One of my machines had replicated over to the MS admin's DNS machine, which means I have about 15 machines left that need to go over. I also listed his DNS server as an NS record in my DNS box. My replication question, to be more precise than I was, deals with whether or not I can force BIND 8.x to push a copy of a zone to another DNS server, specifically a Windows 2000 server. I do have a friend with a copy of the O'Reilly book, but I did not see anything in there about forcing the replication. Of course, I may not have looked hard enough, either so I may look again just to be sure. Due to the fact that I entered the UNIX/LINUX world on May 20 of this year (ie I am a rookie!!), I am grateful for the help.

From the FAQ on ask Mr DNS

You cannot force a load - you can force the notify by either stopping and starting or reloading bind. Once either the slave or master gets the notify then the changes will be sent.


Some other FAQs that may help:
forwarders, secondary

DHCP, DNS, WINS, can't we all just get along?



Sub-domain or Virtual domain