Subject: Usage of DNS UPDATE protocols by server applications to manage the DNS records they need on their own

From: Tobias Markmann <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 31 Jul 2009 13:30:48 +0200

Hi,
I'm currently looking for a convenient solution for the problem of manual
configuration of DNS RRs. The usual setup is that you configure domain and
IP relation in your DNS configuration, in zonefiles or some other kind of
DB, and nearly the same configuration is done in your server application,
may it be a HTTP, SMTP or XMPP server.

In my opinion an ideal solution would be that the applications send the
records they need to the master DNS server. This kind of DNS record
management would be ideal for shared hosting providers or clustered server
situations. I'm sure several shared hosting providers already deploy
something of that kind but I haven't found a open documented way of doing
this.
After all one should aim for minimal configuration by humans to reduce the
amount of errors being introduced by them. Sure, some manual configuration
would still be needed in the DNS server for example, DNS records like SOA
and NS and authentication information to authenticate applications (entities
that want to send DNS updates) against the server.

The protocol that seems to handle such DNS updates seems to be RFC 2136
which is around since 1997. I wonder how far this RFC is implemented among
authoritative DNS servers and whether that RFC is the right approach to
solve the problem of double DNS configuration.

Cheers,
Tobias Markmann

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From: Joe Abley <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 31 Jul 2009 18:53:17 -0400

On 31-Jul-2009, at 07:30, Tobias Markmann wrote:

> The protocol that seems to handle such DNS updates seems to be RFC  
> 2136 which is around since 1997. I wonder how far this RFC is  
> implemented among authoritative DNS servers and whether that RFC is  
> the right approach to solve the problem of double DNS configuration.

DNS UPDATE is wildly deployed and used. It forms an integral part of  
Microsoft's Active Directory, for example.