12.3.4. Reverse Name Resolution Zone Files

12.3.4. Reverse Name Resolution Zone Files

A reverse name resolution zone file is used to translate an IP address in a particular namespace into a FQDN. It looks very similar to a standard zone file, except that PTR resource records are used to link the IP addresses to a fully qualified domain name.

A PTR record looks similar to this: 

        <last-IP-digit> IN PTR <FQDN-of-system>

The <last-IP-digit> is the last number in an IP address which points to a particular system's FQDN.

In the follow example, IP addresses 10.0.1.20 through 10.0.1.25 are pointed to corresponding FQDNs. 

         $ORIGIN 1.0.10.in-addr.arpa. $TTL 86400 @ IN SOA dns1.example.com. hostmaster.example.com. ( 2001062501 ; serial 21600 ; refresh after 6 hours 3600 ; retry after 1 hour 604800 ; expire after 1 week 86400 ) ; minimum TTL of 1 day IN NS dns1.example.com. IN NS dns2.example.com. 20 IN PTR alice.example.com. 21 IN PTR betty.example.com. 22 IN PTR charlie.example.com. 23 IN PTR doug.example.com. 24 IN PTR ernest.example.com. 25 IN PTR fanny.example.com.

This zone file would be called into service with a zone statement in the named.conf file which looks similar to the following: 

         zone "1.0.10.in-addr.arpa" IN { type master; file "example.com.rr.zone"; allow-update { none; }; };

There is very little difference between this example and a standard zone statement, except for the zone name. Note that a reverse name resolution zone requires the first three blocks of the IP address reversed followed by .in-addr.arpa. This allows the single block of IP numbers used in the reverse name resolution zone file to be associated with the zone.


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