Newsgroups: comp.sys.hp


>system@alchemy.chem.utoronto.ca (System Admin (Mike Peterson)) writes...
>
>> Unless your /etc/resolv.conf file contains nonsense, or you are
>> resolving names by NIS instead of DNS, you may have fallen on the
>> $INCLUDE bug in HP-UX named --- if you use $INCLUDE, it will destroy
>> your named data, since things like SOA records in the included file
>> are not seen, and IP address, etc, are garbled (many of ours got 255
>> inserted into one of the fields, which were easy to spot from a database
>> dump).
>

[my previouse post removed for brevity -ash]

>system@alchemy.chem.utoronto.ca (System Admin (Mike Peterson)) responded...
>
> I hate to be picky, but what I said is precisely correct, and is in fact
> exactly what you just said in your posting! Using $INCLUDE causes the
> SOA record to be ignored, and the named data becomes corrupted.

  After reading your orignal posting a second time, I still believe that
a few things you said were unclear, and needed to be corrected. I felt your 
comments implied that include files did not work at all ("if you use $INCLUDE, 
it will destroy your named data, since things like SOA records...")
I am concerned that this unclear statement could cause other people to 
believe that include files do not work. When in fact they do work, UNLESS 
they put their SOA record for the zone inside the include file (which is not 
a very common thing to do).
 

> We have compiled our own named from BSD source, and it works better
> but not perfectly (the $INCLUDE does work properly however).

  A second thing I believe was misleading was that your comments stated
this was an HP-UX bug alone, since you said that after compiling BSD sources
this problem was fixed. This bug is found in BIND 4.8.3 code, and is now
finally fixed in 4.9 alpha code (not yet officially released by Berkeley).
You compiled a new named using patches not distributed by BSD.


> Given that I originally called in this problem in June, that it was not
> fixed in 9.0 and that a patch is still not available is none too impressive.

  Your report reached the lab a few days before the 9.00 code freeze,
and could not be included, since testing needed to be performed and 
several tests needed to be changed. It will be fixed in the next major
release. The low impact of this bug prevented it being included after
code freeze, there are reasonable workarounds and this bug is not seen
by many customers (in fact so far Utoronto is the only one).

  Your report is the only one filed on this problem for named. After you
posted on the net a few months ago, I responded to you by private e-mail
and you mentioned that you already solved the problem by using your own
named sources and that this part of your named problems was resolved. Thus
I did not rush a patch for you, since you already fixed it.  A patch is
forthcoming, but I am delaying it until I can incorporate other patches
put in BIND 4.9... thus avoiding having a bunch of named patches floating
around. 

  Hopefully, you can see that I am concerned that this patch and problem
be put in perspective. I felt that your original posting was unclear enough
to let others think this was an HP only problem with include files not 
working at all. This may have cause an uneccessary rush for uneeded patches, 
since they did not understand the problem fully.


  Art Harkin

Hewlett-Packard Company			E-mail:  ash@cup.hp.com
Information Networks Division
19420 Homestead Road MS 43LN, Cupertino, CA  95014
Newsgroups: comp.sys.hp