Zone Name

Enter the zone name to use. A zone name is necessary for DNSSEC configurations. All FQDNs within the zone are signed using the provided key. All FQDNs outside the zone continue to work but the responses are unsigned.

Note: In LoadMaster firmware version 7.2.52, the Zone Name field moved to the new Zone section and a new Apply to Zone Only check box was added to the Source of Authority section. If this option is enabled, the Source of Authority (SOA) parameters are applied only to the zone. If it is disabled, the SOA parameters apply to all Fully Qualified Domain Names (FQDNs). The Apply to Zone Only option is disabled by default.

Source of Authority

This is defined in RFC 1035. The SOA defines global parameters for the zone (domain). There is only one SOA record allowed in a zone file.

Name Server

The Name Server is defined as the forward DNS entry configured in the Top Level DNS, written as a Fully-Qualified Domain Name (FQDN and ends with a dot), for example lm1.example.com.

If there is more than one Name Server, for example in a HA configuration, then you would add the second Name Server in the field also, separated by a blank space, for example lm1.example.com lm2.example.com.

SOA Email

This textbox is used to publish a mail address of a person or role account dealing with this zone with the “@” converted to a “.”. The best practice is to define (and maintain) a dedicated mail alias, for example “hostmaster” [RFC 2142] for DNS operations, for example hostmaster@example.com.

Disabled clusters are unavailable

In LoadMaster firmware version 7.2.53, a check box named Disabled clusters are unavailable was introduced. This option is disabled by default. When it is enabled, requests to the cluster are dropped if a GEO cluster is disabled.

Glue Record IP

In LoadMaster firmware version 7.2.52, a new text box was introduced called Glue Record IP which allows you to set the IP address of the name server to return in additional records in a DNS response. Both IPv4 and IPv6 addresses are supported.

Glue records appear in query results if the following conditions are met:

  • A Zone has been configured

  • At least one Name Server has been configured and it belongs to the zone

  • The FQDN being queried is part of that Zone

For each name server that belongs to the zone, its glue record is returned.

Query failures occur when a glue record is to be returned, but it is not present on the system.

You can currently add glue records to the LoadMaster in the following ways:

  • In Global Balancing > Miscellaneous Params in the Glue Record IP field you can add a single glue record IP address and it will always correspond to the first name server configured in the Name Server field. The Glue Record IP field defaults to 0.0.0.0 if it is not set. The first Name Server is always guaranteed to have a glue record (0.0.0.0 if not set).

  • If more than one name server is configured that require glue records, a workaround is to add the name server (or servers) as an FQDN in Manage FQDNs and ensure that it has at least one IP address configured. This FQDN then acts as a glue record from BIND's point of view.

Note: If you change the configuration to a scenario where a SERVFAIL occurs due to the lack of a glue record, the issue may not manifest itself until GEO is restarted because BIND appears to be able to mask the issue by caching previous glue records.

TTL

The Time To Live (TTL) value dictates how long the reply from the GEO LoadMaster can be cached by other DNS servers or client devices. This value should be as practically low as possible. The default value for this field is 10. The valid range for this field is between 1 and 86400. The time interval is defined in seconds.

TXT Record

In LoadMaster firmware version 7.2.52, support for the TXT (Text) record type was added to the GEO functionality. A TXT (text) record is unformatted data that can be used for almost any purpose, but typically contains information to be consumed by clients to classify a domain in some way, provide details about a domain, or specify resources available within a domain.

The configured record is returned for a TXT request on any Fully Qualified Domain Name (FQDN).

A maximum of 127 characters can be entered as the global TXT record.

The following are currently not supported:

  • Multiple strings within the record: Some DNS providers allow you to put multiple strings in one entry using quotes, for example, "string 1" "string 2" "string 3". Progress Kemp does not currently allow this, so you can only have "string 1".

  • Non-ASCII characters.