[ldns-users] ldns-read-zone output not very helpful

[Anand Buddhdev]

On 21/07/2021 11:21, Wouter Wijngaards via ldns-users wrote:

Hi Wouter,

>> The zone file has several $INCLUDE directives, and some of the included
>> files have $GENERATE directives in them. Could ldns be getting confused
>> by these? Could it also be reporting the line number *after* including
>> the files? That would explain why I can't find anything obvious.
> 
> ldns-read-zone does not support the include and should return an error,
> in zone.c:262, there it fails for an include directive. Also for the
> generate directive, that should have been a syntax error. Is it reading
> a different, processed, file?

ldns-read-zone is just reading the unprocessed ripe.net.zone file. I
understand that $GENERATE is a BIND-specific directive, and isn't
supported by other utilities.

However, why would ldns not support $INCLUDE directives? They are a part
of the standard, and any DNS zone processing utility must handle them. A
lot of people break up their zones into small units to keep things tidy.
IMHO, if ldns-read-zone won't support a very commonly-used feature of
the DNS zone file standard, then it's not a very useful tool.

Also, if ldns-read-zone doesn't like the $INCLUDE directive, then it
should emit a more useful response. The error it's printing currently
isn't helping operators at all.

Regards,
Anand