Migrating Microsoft DNS to OES Linux

Novell Cool Solutions: Feature
By Michael Faris

Digg This - Slashdot This Posted: 20 Jul 2007

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.

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