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Date:      Mon, 14 May 2001 15:57:02 -0700
From:      "Kevin Oberman" <oberman@es.net>
To:        Rick Duvall <maillist@coastsight.com>
Cc:        freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject:   Re: Named definitions 
Message-ID:  <200105142257.f4EMv3c15708@ptavv.es.net>
In-Reply-To: Your message of "Mon, 14 May 2001 10:59:51 PDT." <Pine.BSF.4.21.0105141056580.25916-100000@ns1.coastsight.com> 

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> Date: Mon, 14 May 2001 10:59:51 -0700 (PDT)
> From: Rick Duvall <maillist@coastsight.com>
> Sender: owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG
> 
> What do the following mean, and what do they do?
> 
> TTL
> Refresh
> Retry
> Expire
> 
> I *think* TTL is Time for DNS entry to live before it forgets the
> entry.  But if that's the case, then why is Expire there if TTL does the
> same thing?  Refresh I *think* is when it re-loads the DNS entry from the
> main server, and retry I *think* is how often it tries to get a DNS entry
> until successful.

TTL is the time a non-authoritative server will cache a negative
response. for re-use. (This is actually an over-loaded term. See
below.)

Expire the the time a slave server will continue to provide data for a
zone without contact to with the master server.

Refresh is how often a slave should check with the master for possible
changes in the zone.

Retry is the time a slave should wait after a failed refresh attempt
before trying another refresh.

Expire the the time a slave server will continue to provide data for a
zone without contact to with the master server.

More on TTL. The value in the SOA record is the MINIMUM TTL for cache
entries to live. A separate TTL should be attached to each RR in the
zone. That TTL is the one used to time out normal cache entries. The
MINIMUM TTL in the SOA is used to set the time a negative cache entry
is to be kept. Negative entries are things like non-existent domain
messages from an authoritative server. This keeps the servers from
being bombarded by broken software looking for something that is not in
the zone.

The TTL for negative cache is normally small (< 30 minutes) since the
query may have simply been premature and the name might be created
soon. Since there is no RR, the server can't provide TTL information,
so the TTL in the SOA is used.

As a matter of practice people do not enter a TTL for every RR.
Instead, they use the $TTL declaration at the beginning of a zone to
define a default TTL and that value will be attached to all RRs that
do not contain and explicit TTL.

Are you completely confused yet?

R. Kevin Oberman, Network Engineer
Energy Sciences Network (ESnet)
Ernest O. Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab)
E-mail: oberman@es.net			Phone: +1 510 486-8634


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