Semi-automated L3 interface DNS records

Thu Oct 18 20:10:46 UTC 2012

Pedersen, Sean (Sean.Pedersen) writes:
> Does anyone out there have any experience with a script, tool or appliance that would help manage the creation and maintenance of DNS records for Layer 3 interfaces on routers and switches?

	Hi Sean,

	Part of Netdot's (Network Documentation Tool - netdot.uoregon.edu)
	functionality is to produce automated DNS zone exports based on the
	IPAM information it manages, including L3 devices and their interfaces.

> We'd like to move toward this practice to help with troubleshooting and IPAM, but it's not feasible to do it manually. At a minimum, I was mulling over the idea of writing a script that would poll a device via SNMP to obtain interface information, parse it, compare the results to DNS, then generate a report if it found a miss. It wouldn't be fully-automated, but it would be better than doing that portion of the work manually. Cleaning up dead entries would be another issue.

	Writing the scripts isn't too difficult, but as you write, you still
	need to detect dead entries, differentiate between an interface
	disappearing because it was deprovisioned, and the sudden disappearance
	of a large number of IFs due to a script failing (is 1 dead entry
	acceptable ? 10 ? 1000 ?)

	Cheers,
	Phil