Primary and Secondary DNS Zones

Irish Man

Hey Guys,

Whats the big advantage of using a secondary DNS zone and when and where would I use such a zone ? How does it compare to a stub zone ?

Thanks
Colin

bighornsheep

A stub zone will only store certain types of records needed for specific DNS communications (SOA, NS, glue-A). A secondary zone will store all types of records.

The main difference is the link between your primary zone and the secondary/stub zone. If you want to reduce replication traffic but still have a read-only dns server at the remote site, stub zone is often used. Secondary zone is used in the generic remote site scenario where a dns server is needed but no restrictions is mentioned.

For technotes instructions for stub zone, see:
http://technet2.microsoft.com/windowsserver/en/library/16AAA883-B70A-4B9B-AFD1-6A9705FE8D0A1033.mspx