I just recently stepped into a new job out of college and am learning the ropes quickly. I have just been requested to move DNS for a specific domain name. The new clients asked for the current zone configuration of the DNS entry. Is this asking for the IP address of the host server? Or am I missing something bigger?
2 Answers
No, they are looking for more than just a single entry for your server, they are asking for the complete zone
for your domain name.
The Zone consists of the SOA
(Start Of Authority) record, and any A
, AAAA
, CNAME
, MX
, PTR
, SRV
and TXT
records contained within that zone.
See wikipedia's entries for Zone file and DNS zone for a good overview of what you are looking for.
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Why would a client who is taking over the Domain name need to know this information?– GMitchAug 1, 2011 at 14:50
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Most likely they want to pass this on to a new / different DNS Hosting company so that the existing zone is already in-place when they switch to the new host - essentially preventing downtime. Once switched over, they would then make any required changes (ie, change the IP Address for certain
A
records, or redirect elsewhere by changingA
records toCNAME
records). Of course, it's also possible that they have asked for thezone
, which is as described above, but mean something different - it may be best to ask them what they expect to receive from you. Aug 1, 2011 at 14:56
They're looking for the list of records that configures the DNS server software with what entries that it needs to serve for a given domain - the "zone file", in DNS terminology.
What DNS software is it hosted on? We can probably give more specific assistance with that information.