Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!sdd.hp.com!decwrl!ucbvax!SCI.CCNY.CUNY.EDU!dan
From: dan@SCI.CCNY.CUNY.EDU (Dan Schlitt)
Newsgroups: comp.protocols.tcp-ip.domains
Subject: Monitoring your nameserver
Message-ID: <9008141525.AA27754@sci.ccny.cuny.edu>
Date: 14 Aug 90 15:25:10 GMT
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Distribution: inet
Organization: The Internet
Lines: 26


A few days ago I posted a question to the BIND list.  I got a few responses
but not as much as I expected.  This mailinglist is a little more active
than the BIND list so maybe I can get a few more ideas from it.

/dan

To: bind@ucbarpa.Berkeley.EDU
Subject: How do YOU tell if named has died?

Two events yesterday prompt me to ask the assembled multitude the
question in the subject line.  First, I discovered that while I was
away on vacation named on one of our hosts died and nobody here at the
time noticed its passing.  It didn't cause problems for anyone because
it is only doing DNS for our local domain and is one of two
secondaries.  The primary and the off-site secondary were both doing
their job.  But we might not have been so lucky.

Second, I read J. Van Bokkelen's new RFC (rfc1173) and was reminded of my
responsibilities (which I obviously had been shirking).

So how do folks arrange to get automatic notification in a timely way
when their nameserver software dies?  Answers for diverse hardware
running unix for me, but others may be interested in other cases.

/dan