Testout vs. Microsoft Training kit (zone transfer question)

helms20

Hello all,

I was studying for the 291 tonight and while going through the testout material it says that all zone transfers are axfr. I was pretty sure this was incorrect and found in the Microsoft training kit that Server 2000 and 2003, by default, use IXFR.

Can anyone clear this up?

Thank you,

Helms20

royal

You're correct. NT4 uses AFXR while 2000+ uses IFXR.

sprkymrk

Can you tell us exactly what the Testout said? Did it specify AD Intergrated zone transfers, BIND, or versions?

dgbarr

Testout does mention that ifxr is rather new to DNS and is for Windows 2000+

and does go into great detail about AD-I

You may have misunderstood what was mentioned as he mentions AFXR as full zone transfer

ixfr = only changed records are transfered
axfr = replicates all zone transfers

wpiersall

The way it has been explained to me is as follows:

Zone information is updated by incremental (i) zone transfer (IXFR), thus only changes to the zone file are sent not the whole zone.

As for a full (all) zone transfer (AXFR), would replicate the entire zone file.

helms20

sprkymrk wrote:

Can you tell us exactly what the Testout said? Did it specify AD Intergrated zone transfers, BIND, or versions?

It was not on one of the lectures it was on one of the quick review sheets with just printed material.

You may have misunderstood what was mentioned as he mentions AFXR as full zone transfer

I understand the difference and do know that he mentioned "AXFR" as "all" zone transfer but in the same section the study page that reviews before the test states the following. I know what is below is a bit much.

By the way thank you all for helping with the question.

Zone Transfer Facts
Replication through standard zones takes place through zone transfers. Secondary servers contact their master servers for new zone information. You should know the following facts about zone transfers:

The zone serial number is modified when changes are made to the zone file.
Zone transfer is initiated when a secondary server checks the master server and finds an incremented zone serial number.
Zone transfer notification occurs when the master server contacts the secondary server when changes have been made.
By default, a DNS server replicates the entire zone database (called a full zone transfer or AXFR).
A partial zone transfer, in which only the changed information is replicated, is also called an incremental zone transfer or IXFR.
To initiate a manual transfer, increment the serial number first. Otherwise, no transfer will occur (a transfer only occurs when the serial number has changed).
You can improve DNS performance by placing multiple DNS servers on your network. For example, you can place a secondary server on the other side of a WAN link to reduce WAN traffic caused by name resolution. However, zone replication traffic must still cross the WAN link.
A caching only server runs DNS but has no zones configured. Use a caching only server to improve performance while eliminating zone transfers.
An Active Directory-integrated zone stores DNS information in Active Directory rather than in a zone file. Zone information is copied automatically when AD replicates.
If a zone is Active Directory-integrated and has no secondary servers, you can disable zone transfers. Zone data will continue to be replicated through Active Directory.
Normally, zone transfers happen automatically at periodic intervals. You can force an update of zone data through the DNS console or by using the Dnscmd command. The following table lists some actions you can take to refresh zone data manually.

DNS Console Action Dnscmd Option Result
Reload Dnscmd /ReloadZone The server reloads zone data from its local copy (it reads the data back in from the zone file on the hard disk).
Transfer from Master Dnscmd /Refresh Initiates a normal zone transfer. The DNS server compares its version number with the version of the zone master. If the version numbers are the same, no zone transfer takes place.
Reload from Master N/A The DNS server **** its copy of the data and reloads the entire data from the master server.

To force a zone transfer, you can either update the sequence number on the master server and then transfer the data from the master, or you can simply reload the data from the master.

helms20

Also in case anyone wants to go back and read their material in testout to ensure that I don't have a missing update it is section 3.10.10.

Once again thank you everyone.

dgbarr

I would believe there would be some copyright issues to what you have just done

helms20

dgbarr wrote:

I would believe there would be some copyright issues to what you have just done

Well if it is incorrect maybe someone from Testout will see it and fix the issue as not to confuse future people studying for this test