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Since DNS in an MS environment "generally" follows bind rules, it makes better sense to run DNS on a Linux platform. The steps to migrate the DNS zones from Windows to Linux are fairly simple, just a bit more time consuming than NetWare.

NOTE: Do not run the DNS service in YaST before the process explained here is complete, it will overwrite any changes.

1. Copy each zone file located in %SystemRoot%/System32/dns/ from your Windows server to your workstation. All zone files have a ".dns" extension.

2. With a text editor, open the zone file and add the following to the beginning of the file:

$ORIGIN .
	$TTL 3600	; 1 hour

3. Change the following line from:

@                         IN  SOA [servername].   hostmaster. ( 

to:

zonename.com IN SOA [OESservername].zonename.com. [username]/[email.com]. (

4. Remove the "@" at the beginning of the NS line, and change the server name to the OES servername.

5. Insert a line before the first zone record and type the following, changing the zonename.com to yours.

$ORIGIN  zonename.com.

6. Since Microsoft doesn't use a named config file to identify all the zones serviced by that server, pipe a dir listing of the %SystemRoot%/System32/dns/ to a text file and save it to your workstation.

dir > zones.txt

7. Edit this text file and remove the ".dns" from the listings.

8. SSH to the OES Linux server and switch to su.

9. Edit /etc/named.conf

10. Go down to below the last "};"

11. Copy the zone information retrieved from the zones.txt and paste it into the file.

12. Save and exit.

13. Copy the file /etc/named.conf to /var/lib/named/etc/named.conf

Migrating the zone data

1. Copy the revised zone files for the master zones you wish to migrate from your workstation to /var/lib/named/master on your OES Linux server.
2. Copy the revised zone files for the master zones you wish to migrate from your workstation to /var/lib/named/slave on your OES Linux server.

Once you're done with all your zones, don't forget in-arpa zones, configure named to start automatically on boot using chkconfig named.

Be sure to disable DNS on your Windows server and edit your DHCP and/or clients to utilize the new DNS server.

Disclaimer: As with everything else at Cool Solutions, this content is definitely not supported by Novell (so don't even think of calling Support if you try something and it blows up).

It was contributed by a community member and is published "as is." It seems to have worked for at least one person, and might work for you. But please be sure to test, test, test before you do anything drastic with it.