What’s an SOA Record?
SOA records contain administrative information such as the name of the domain or zone, serial numbers, and refresh information. DNS servers are often set up in clusters with master and secondary DNS zones to allow for DNS redundancy on a network to prevent total outages.
In order for the DNS zones to stay in sync, they perform zone transfers. The information provided within an SOA record such as the serial number and timing information for refresh, retry, and expiry enables the synchronization.
An SOA record will also contain the email address of the administrator of that zone to communicate issues.
- Name – Name of zone
- Zone Class – Usually IN for Internet
- MNAME – Name of Master or Primary name server
- RNAME – Email address of the zone owner
- Serial – Serial number that keeps zones in sync
- Refresh – Time span for which a secondary server should check with the primary server to see if sync is required
- Retry – Time span for which a secondary server should check with a primary server when it’s unreachable
- Expire – Time span for which a secondary server should stop checking with a primary server in the case of a failed refresh
- TTL – Time to live for caching reasons
|
Name |
menandmice.com |
|---|---|
|
Zone Class |
IN |
|
MNAME |
ns1.menandmice.com |
|
RNAME |
admin.menandmice.com |
|
Serial |
2020080303 |
|
Refresh |
86400 |
|
Retry |
7200 |
|
Expire |
4000000 |
|
TTL |
3600 |
Though the email address in RNAME is written as admin.menandmice.com, which is correct in this case, it stands for [email protected]. The @ sign is not possible in this contect within the record.
How you create an SOA record depends on the DNS tool you’re using. In the case of Micetro, by Men&Mice, the SOA record is created automatically when a new zone is created. You can then modify the record by doing the following:
- Click on the DNS tab in the Web UI
- Click on the zone which contatains the SOA record you’d like to modify
- In the inspector on the right, click the pencil icon next to SOA to modify the SOA record
- Change the values as necessary
- Depending on your permissions click Create Now or Add to Request.