jcurran@SH.CS.NET (John Curran) (03/12/91)
] From: Andrew Partan <asp@uunet.uu.net> ] Cc: namedroppers@nic.ddn.mil ] ] RFC 1033 suggests using the following values in the SOA record: ] ] @ IN SOA SRI-NIC.ARPA. HOSTMASTER.SRI-NIC.ARPA. ( ] 45 ;serial ] 3600 ;refresh ] 600 ;retry ] 3600000 ;expire ] 86400 ) ;minimum ] ] I think that the refresh & retry times are way too sort in today's ] Internet. ] ] I have been suggesting to anyone that asks me to use at least 1 day for ] refresh (and preferably higher) and to use at least 1 hour for the ] retry time. We use 5 days & 1 hour here. In general, I think that the timers are too short. Depending on the actual site, I've been using between 12 and 30 hours for refresh. The 10 minute retry interval can cause problems during an extended network outage (I know, those don't happen.. :-), particularly once 30 or 40 sites fail their zone xfer and are in the retry cycle. An hour "feels" reasonable. ] I also think that the expire time of ~40 days is rather long - I have ] been suggesting 20 days. We've been using a fairly low expiration time (48 to 120 hours) with good results. It does require "watching" your secondary zone files to insure they don't approach expiration, but allows sites to make changes knowing that the "old" records will be out of the net fairly quickly even when a nameserver has become isolated (say "Foreign sites?"). I wouldn't encourage short expirations at most sites since it does require active monitoring; we've been recommending 240 hours. Enjoy, /John