Replacing a DNS Server with F5 BIG-IP DNS
First things first, you have decided to deploy F5 BIG-IP DNS to replace a BIND server after receiving notifications from your information assurance officer or your friendly LinkedIn community that ad...
Published Feb 23, 2018
Version 1.0
In this article off-box bind is used to initially feed on-box bind with existing zone data from off-box bind. After we can forget off-box bind - Am I right?
Steve: Correct
If above is correct then on-box bind is used to keep zone data on disk in opposite to DNSExpress. That is necessary to feed DNSExpress with zone data for example after BIG-IP reboot. Am I closer to the truth now?
Steve: Yes the zone data is held and managed by zonerunner. The only thing DNSExpress is doing at this point is actually responding to DNS queries for performance and security purposes.
I assume that naming zone in ZoneRunner with db. prefix is mandatory for some reason?
Steve: This is not an F5 naming convention but rather Bind in general to include all flavors.
What still puzzles me is if I really get why on-box bind is necessary - just to store zone file on disk?
Steve: DNSExpress was never designed to be a DNS management tool but rather a proprietary implementation to server up DNS responses. ZoneRunner was put in place in the event an organization does not want to interface with an off box bind or any other DNS server for that matter and let F5 perform all functions to include managing zones and records.