Errata

called h2n that translates a hosts file into a set of BIND files. The
examples from recent editions include a hugely reworked script called
h2n-hp with many more features. I _love_ those scripts--they're great
for creating initial configurations (before you start doing dynamic
updates).

I just identified and corrected a problem in the h2n-hp script. I'm not
sure best how to submit this correction; I can't find any contact
information in the script itself. So I hope you can get this
information to whoever maintains the downloadable examples.

h2n-hp has +om and +os flags to add zone-specific options to the config
files. The flags work correctly for -n (reverse) zones, but not for -d
(forward) zones. So when I use the configuration:

...
-d cisco.pittstate.edu
+om allow-update { key cisco.pittstate.edu; };

...
-n 192.168.3
+om allow-update { key cisco.pittstate.edu; };

...

the allow-update gets added correctly to the named.conf entry for the
3.168.192.in-addr.arpa zone, but not for the cisco.pittstate.edu zone.

The correction is to change line 4767 of h2n-hp from

if ($lastNorD =~ /^-d (.*)/) {
! $MasterZoneOptions{db.$1} .= "$tmp1
";
} elsif ...

to

if ($lastNorD =~ /^-d (.*)/) {
! $MasterZoneOptions{$1} .= "$tmp1
";
} elsif ...

and to make the corresponding change to the %SlaveZoneOptions key in
line 4788.

The problem is that $lastNorD is set to e.g. "db.cisco" for a forward
zone, but only to e.g. "192.168.3" for a reverse zone; this made the key
on a forward +om incorrectly e.g. "db.db.cisco", which never matches
when printing out the zone info at line 5409. (The reverse zones
correctly form the key e.g. "db.192.168.3", and work properly.)

I don't know why this difference exists between forward and reverse
handling, and it's too deeply embedded for me to be interested in
tackling it systemically. But the correction shown here is trivial, and
works. (I can now add the DDNS key to my forward zone.)

AUTHOR: Looks right to me. I'll forward the message to Andris, who maintains h2n-hp.

"four bits" HAS BEEN CHANGED to "sixteen bits"

"... al.robocop.movie.edu.("

NOW READS:
"... al.robocop.movie.edu. ("

The format of the $GENERATE is wrong.

$GENERATE n-m $ IN CNAME $.zone

It should be:

$GENERATE n-m $ CNAME $.zone

"The first group of hex digits [...] represents the most significant

The third zone statement should read:

zone "_sites.fx.movie.edu" {
type master;
file "db._sites.fx.movie.edu";
allow-update { dc; };x
};

The fourth zone statement should read:

zone "_msdcs.fx.movie.edu" {
type master;
file "db._msdcs.fx.movie.edu";
allow-update { dc; };
check-names ignore;
};