Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2001 17:34:45 -0500
From: Jim Paris <jim@jtan.com>
To: network-request@MIT.EDU
Subject: error in mit.edu zone
Message-Id: <20010124173445.A24406@jtan.com>
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I'm setting up a nameserver on my own system (on mitnet) and I would
like to make it a slave to bitsy et al.  However, the zone transfer
fails with "CNAME and other data"; an error which your version of BIND
probably complains about and ignores, but newer versions of BIND
(8.2+) complain about and disallow.  

I believe that the offending lines are:

MIT		IN	MX	100 PACIFIC-CARRIER-ANNEX.MIT.EDU.
		IN	MX	100 SOUTH-STATION-ANNEX.MIT.EDU.
		IN	CNAME	MIT.EDU.

which, according to BIND docs, is technically not allowed (and
completely unaccepted by later versions of BIND).

I believe that the proper way to solve this is to either not include
the MX records for MIT.MIT.EDU., or, since that would undoubtedly
break things, to not write it as a CNAME and instead use:

MIT		IN	MX	100 PACIFIC-CARRIER-ANNEX.MIT.EDU.
		IN	MX	100 SOUTH-STATION-ANNEX.MIT.EDU.
		IN	A	18.7.21.70
		IN	A	18.7.21.69

I think that this is a change worth making; if nothing else, it will
be necessary if you ever want to upgrade the nameservers.

-jim