Kirya [.net]

A small memo in case it happens again… Maybe this can also help others…

I have made a typing error when incrementing a zone serial number this morning (I though we were in year 2009!). I realized this error after the transfer was made to my secondary server, and I couldn’t figure out how I could fix this: if the serial number on the slave server is lower than the serial number on the master, the slave server will attempt to update its copy of the zone.

I have read some websites explaining one should add 2147483647 (2^31-1) to the number, reload the zone, let the slave get updated and revert to the appropriate serial number.

Unfortunately, this solution hasn’t worked for me.

I have read in RFC 1912 (section 2.2 - SOA records), that the system was planned until year 4294. I have henced updated the number of my master server to year 4294123199 (ie. the last possible serial number), reloaded the zone. After the transfer was propagated to the slave, I could simply revert to a standard serial number.