DNS: Import Bind zones in Mac OS X Server

Question

Hi all,
currently I'm about to setup a new Mac OS X 10.5 based web server. Everything seems to work better than expected. Only importing bind zones does not work at all. After reading the documentation and some threads here, I figured out Apple changed the zone files format. It always possible to import "old" zone files coming from any other DNS, but if you do, they will not be displayed in the new Server Admin and you are not able to edit your zones there. Furthermore it is not clear whether a Bind zone file imported earlier can get in conflict with an identical zone defined later by mistake.
So I searched for the new zone files, created by the Server Admin app and found them in "/var/named/zones/". They are more user-readable than standard Bind zones and include a GUID. Additonaly the naming conventions changed to "db.<stld>.<tld>.zone.apple" and a dummy bind zone file in "/var/named/" is created too, pointing to the corresponding new zone file.
Now my question (Yes, I know, long and boring intro) ...
*Is there a way or a hidden app to convert standard bind zones to the new Apple format? I read something about an auto migrate function when upgrading from 10.4 to 10.5 Server. So it seems to be possible.*
Any tipps?
Thanks a lot,
Wolfgang Neikes
btw.: *Hey, Apple, please add a simple import button to the DNS Admin GUI! You know how.*

Answer 1

Well, I'm being hit by something very similar, so I'll follow up to your post.
But I think you have two completely separate issues involved here, so I'm going to make two comment areas
Comment 1 : The change from files to GUI for Server-Admin-Managed-Zones
The content of /var/named/zones is variable, generated by the Server Admin program. Don't touch any of the files in there! They appear to be standard BIND files, but they're in a different location because that's how the GUI communicates with BIND.
You can track back back exactly what happens following the named.conf file: it's actually working exactly as BIND does on other OS's, it just uses some include file redirection to make things manageable by the GUI.
/etc/named.conf contains :
include "/etc/dns/publicView.conf.apple";
This file contains a list of all the zones you have configured in the gui. For example (if I were apple.com) :
zone "apple.com." {
type master;
file "db.apple.com.";
allow-transfer {any;};
allow-update {none;};
The default directory is /var/named, so if you look at /var/named/db.apple.com., you can see another include line:
$INCLUDE /var/named/zones/db.apple.com.zone.apple
and that file, finally, contains the BIND SOA file you're used to (I couldn't see anything in it that's unusual)
Meaning, there's no "apple" format, and anything you put in /var/named/zones would just get overwritten by the GUI anyways, so don't do that
Comment 2:
So, according to page 63 of the Networking Services Admin manual for 10.5, you can do everything you used to do by adding your own entries into /etc/named.conf.
OK, I add the following:
(Note that everything has to be in a view because that's how BIND works
view "everyone" {
allow-recursion {any;};
zone "not-apple.com" {
type master;
file "not-apple.com.";
allow-update { none; };
allow-transfer { any; };
OK, fine, when I turn the logging on to "Debug" mode I can see it loading my domain like all the others. Yay!
But, back to something you said: it doesn't work!
Sure, it SAYS it loaded the file, but when I test it with dig:
# dig soa not-apple.com @localhost +norecurse
; <<>> DiG 9.4.1-P1 <<>> soa not-apple.com @localhost +norecurse
; (3 servers found)
;; global options: printcmd
;; Got answer:
;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 17216
;; flags: qr ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 0, AUTHORITY: 13, ADDITIONAL: 0
;; QUESTION SECTION:
;not-apple.com. IN SOA
;; AUTHORITY SECTION:
com. 171983 IN NS I.GTLD-SERVERS.NET.
com. 171983 IN NS D.GTLD-SERVERS.NET.
(etc.)
Basically, it denies knowing anything about not-apple.com, despite it having "successfully" loaded it in the log contents.
THIS *****: I would desperately like to close down an old server of mine (without having to manually add every domain and just re-use the existing files) but I'm finding that I'm unable to do so because Leopard doesn't work according to the documentation