On 23 May 2023 at 21:47, Randy Bush wrote: We at .mw have tried rsync in the past 2 years to backup DNS zone files and other such files to a remote site but our experience shows that this does not work as good as XFR. In addition we noticed that rsync introduces some unecessary security issues as you have to pass authentication details around be it passwords or digital certificates. We still use rsync only for backing up the BIND server config file since this changes much less often and it then is just a matter of restarting the BIND server after such a transfer. The win here is big if your database is still small, you get better zone file synchronisation between FRED and the secondaries that propagate the zones. You avoid the rsync related security issues. Your zones will propagate in good time in relation to the TTLs of the zones instead of adding additional time and complication from rsynch As the database grows then you can go for multiple machines. At .mw we now have a very large database since FRED also accummulates logs in the database and we occassionally have to trim the database to optimise use of memory, disc space and avoid timeouts that registrars face when such resources get exhausted on the single machine. Does that help ? Regards, Paulos ===================================== Dr Paulos B Nyirenda NIC.MW & .mw ccTLD: http://www.nic.mw SDNP: http://www.sdnp.org.mw Tel: +265-(0)-882 089 166 Cell: +265-(0)-888-824787 WhatsApp: +265-(0)-887386433 -- This email has been checked for viruses by AVG antivirus software. www.avg.com