Should I use /etc/bind/zones/ or /var/cache/bind/?

Solution 1:

For your master zones, they should go in /etc/bind/zones because they're config. Secondary (slave) zones should be in /var/cache/bind/secondary or similar, because it's just cached data that can be retrieved from the master if the data is lost.

Solution 2:

/var/lib/bind/ - master and dynamic zones

/var/cache/bind/ - secondary zones

/etc/bind/ - zones that should not change for the lifetime of the server.

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Solution 3:

A short answer is that it doesn't matter and either will work.

I used to use /var/cache/bind, but now I always use /etc/bind as /var/cache is usually excluded from backups (per the FHS /var/cache must be able to be recreated automatically).

Any secondary or dynamic zones still live in /var/cache.

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Solution 4:

Just like womble, I agree with the fact that /var/cache/bind is good for secondary (slave) zones. On the other hand, I don't think that master zones should be under /etc. They are configuration files just as much as content served by Apache is, so they should be stored somewhere under /var, but not under /var/cache.

Just for the record, Red Hat based systems store zones under /var/named (from where they might be copied automatically to /var/named/chroot/var/named). The configuration file is /etc/named.conf.