[Pdns-users] Question about SOA record and periods

[Alan Murrell]

Hello,

I am new to the list and PowerDNS.  I had a search through the archives and 
documentation, but did not the answer to my questions, so hopefully someone 
here can help me out?

First, regarding the SOA record: I notice in the example provided in the 
documnetation, the SOA record that gets inserted into the MySQL database 
looks like this:

  localhost ahu at ds9a.nl 1

where 'localhost' is the host to query (I think), 'ahu at ds9a.nl' is the 
administrator's email address, and '1' is the serial.  Okay, easy enough to 
understand.

When I run the 'zone2sql' tool on my zone records here (BIND9), however, there 
is extra information after the serial, namely the 'refresh', 'retry', 
'expire', and 'default_ttl' values.

My questions:

  1. I assume these values are not strictly necessary, since they do not seem 
to be included in the example provided.  However, if they are included, will 
these values be honoured, or are they just simply ignored, and therefore best 
left out altogether?
  2. Does PowerDNS use defaults for these values somewhere in it's code?

Okay, second, with regards to the use of periods.  Again, in the examples in 
the documentation, I do not notice the use of periods when entering the MX 
server data, NS data, etc.

My questions:

  1. Are the use of these periods basically a BIND affectation, and therefore 
not necessary, or was this an error in the documentation?
  2. If they are not necessary, will adding them to the data in the database 
have any effect (detrimental or otherwise)?

Thank you, in advance, for your help.

Alan Murrell <alanm at vcn.bc.ca>