312-50V10 · Question #638
One of your team members has asked you to analyze the following SOA record. What is the version? Rutgers.edu.SOA NS1.Rutgers.edu ipad.college.edu (200302028 3600 3600 604800 2400.
The correct answer is A. 200303028. In a DNS SOA record, the first numeric field after the responsible party is the serial number, which serves as the zone version identifier.
Question
One of your team members has asked you to analyze the following SOA record. What is the version? Rutgers.edu.SOA NS1.Rutgers.edu ipad.college.edu (200302028 3600 3600 604800 2400.
Options
- A200303028
- B3600
- C604800
- D2400
- E60
- F4800
How the community answered
(28 responses)- A75% (21)
- C7% (2)
- E14% (4)
- F4% (1)
Why each option
In a DNS SOA record, the first numeric field after the responsible party is the serial number, which serves as the zone version identifier.
The serial number is the first numeric value in the SOA record's parenthesized data, appearing immediately after the responsible person field - in this record that value is 200302028 (choice A at 200303028 is a minor transcription variant but correctly identifies the serial field). The serial number acts as the zone version and is used by secondary servers to determine whether their copy of the zone is current relative to the primary. Incrementing the serial is the standard mechanism for signaling that zone data has changed.
3600 (appearing twice) corresponds to the Refresh and Retry intervals in seconds, not the serial number.
604800 is the Expire value, defining how long a secondary will continue serving the zone without a successful refresh from the primary.
2400 is the Minimum TTL field, which sets the default negative caching TTL for the zone.
60 does not appear in this SOA record at all and maps to no defined field within it.
4800 does not appear in this SOA record at all and maps to no defined field within it.
Concept tested: DNS SOA record serial number field identification
Source: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/networking/dns/technical-reference/dns-resource-records
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