[Pdns-users] why different parameters syntax on forward-zones and forward-zones-file

[Kevin P. Fleming]

On Tue, Nov 29, 2022, at 08:45, Victor Hugo dos Santos via Pdns-users wrote:
> hello there,
>
> today we have to migrate an old configuration (what was using the
> forward-zones-file) to a new server using the ansible recursor
> playbook (https://github.com/PowerDNS/pdns_recursor-ansible), but some
> internal domains didn't worked well and after some debug we got that
> there is a difference using the "+" on the  forward-zones and
> forward-zones-file.
>
> https://docs.powerdns.com/recursor/settings.html#forward-zones
> https://docs.powerdns.com/recursor/settings.html#forward-zones-file
>
> ```Zones prefixed with a ‘+’ are treated as with
> forward-zones-recurse. Default behaviour without ‘+’ is as with
> forward-zones.```
>
> So, why this two parameters need to have different syntax (not only
> the +, but the use of ; and , as separator:

The "+" (and other markers) are necessary in order to avoid requiring a configuration for every combination of forward-zones optional behaviors; it would be much more difficult to manage a configuration which had forward-zones-file, forward-zones-recurse-file, forward-zones-notify-file, forward-zones-recurse-notify-file, etc.

If you'd like forward-zones to accept the same "+" and "^" markers as forward-zones-file does, and then there would be no need for forward-zones-recurse/etc., that would be a reasonable feature request.