RFC 2136 (rfc2136) - Page 1 of 26
Dynamic Updates in the Domain Name System (DNS UPDATE)
Alternative Format: Original Text Document
Network Working Group P. Vixie, Editor
Request for Comments: 2136 ISC
Updates: 1035 S. Thomson
Category: Standards Track Bellcore
Y. Rekhter
Cisco
J. Bound
DEC
April 1997
Dynamic Updates in the Domain Name System (DNS UPDATE)
Status of this Memo
This document specifies an Internet standards track protocol for the
Internet community, and requests discussion and suggestions for
improvements. Please refer to the current edition of the "Internet
Official Protocol Standards" (STD 1) for the standardization state
and status of this protocol. Distribution of this memo is unlimited.
Abstract
The Domain Name System was originally designed to support queries of
a statically configured database. While the data was expected to
change, the frequency of those changes was expected to be fairly low,
and all updates were made as external edits to a zone's Master File.
Using this specification of the UPDATE opcode, it is possible to add
or delete RRs or RRsets from a specified zone. Prerequisites are
specified separately from update operations, and can specify a
dependency upon either the previous existence or nonexistence of an
RRset, or the existence of a single RR.
UPDATE is atomic, i.e., all prerequisites must be satisfied or else
no update operations will take place. There are no data dependent
error conditions defined after the prerequisites have been met.
1 - Definitions
This document intentionally gives more definition to the roles of
"Master," "Slave," and "Primary Master" servers, and their
enumeration in NS RRs, and the SOA MNAME field. In that sense, the
following server type definitions can be considered an addendum to
[RFC 1035], and are intended to be consistent with [RFC 1996]:
Slave an authoritative server that uses AXFR or IXFR to
retrieve the zone and is named in the zone's NS
RRset.
Vixie, et. al. Standards Track