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5. Maintenance

Keeping it working.

There is one maintenance task you have to do on nameds, other than keeping them running. That's keeping the root.cache file updated. The easiest way is using dig, first run dig with no arguments, you will get the root.cache according to your own server. Then ask one of the listed root servers with dig @rootserver. You will note that the output looks terrebly like a root.cache file except for a couple of extra numbers. Those numbers are harmless. Save it to a file (dig @e.root-servers.net >root.cache.new) and replace the old root.cache with it.

You can also get the same information using nslookup with set q=ns, asking a root server for `.' will list the root servers, simple editing will render the output in root.cache format.

Lastly you can get the latest root.cache from ftp:rs.internic.net/domain/root.cache. You need a new one very seldom, don't get it more than at most once a year, rs.internic.net does not need the extra load from you, and every one else, getting the file once a week.

Remember to restart named after replacing the cache file.


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