are comments in Bind zone file visible to anyone who can access the view

Brian

1/31/24, 10:33 PM

I just implemented zone transfer restrictions (IP plus tsig key) on my bind server. I assume this should mean that the entire zone contents are not accessible by anyone anymore, correct?

If I place comments (leading semi-colon) in my zone files, is there any way an external user can see the comments?

Do comments only exist in the file, and are ignored/not loaded into memory when the zone is loaded?

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diya

2/1/24, 7:52 AM

IIRC and AFAIK even with a full zone transfer (AXFR) – you don’t copy the actual zone file between servers but effectively all zone data as interpreted by bind. Zone file shorthand gets expanded and if you make use of the $INCLUDE keyword or dynamic zones with data still in the journal file that data should be included. Comments are not included in that. But I can’t test and confirm that at the moment

Brian

2/1/24, 2:43 PM

@diya I've been learning about zone transfers in the last week or so, and your comment lines up with what I recall reading. I'm pretty sure you're right, that there's no reason for it to store the raw zone file in memory, rather the parsed useful data (and that's what a slave would store). I learned using dynamic updates that $INCLUDES pull it into the zone file one way, and will write the entire zone file, include contents and all, through the journaling.

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