scavenging not working on an 'old' zone

I have inherited this infrastructure, so be kind...

My AD integrated DNS has many zones, some records have date stamps that go
back to 2001. I have enabled scavenging on one zone with the default of
7/7, but it never removes any old records (the ones with date stamps that
are years old, for example).

I have read online that scavenging will only work on records that are
created after scavenging is enabled, but it was just a discussion group and
not any MS 'approved' site. I am running the scavenging on a 2k3 DC/DNS
box, but a couple of the DCs are still 2k (until next week) - if that is a
consideration.

Ideas?
Blake

 

Hi Blake,

When did you enable Aging on the zone? Before Scavenging can run against a
zone a full Refresh Interval must pass, in your case that means the zone
won't Scavenge until 7 days after you enabled Aging.

To check whether records can be scavenged at all, select View \ Advanced,
then open the properties for a record. It'll have a tick box stating whether
or not it can be removed (as well as the Time Stamp).

There's no further limitation on what can be scavenged, it's certainly not
restricted to records added after Aging is enabled.

 

Thanks for your reply, Chris.

I enabled scavenging several weeks ago. This zone IS set to scavenge (I
double-checked) and it is set to 7/7 for no-refresh/refresh intervals.

For example, the PTR record I am looking at now has the 'delete this record
when it becomes states' box ticked, and the record time stamp reads
11/19/2001 10:00:00 AM. To my way of thinking, this record would get
deleted during the next scavenge.

Blake

 

Yeah, it certainly should. What happen when you run Scavenging?

Presumably you've set the scavenging period to 1 day or something similar?

Chris

 

I think you are on to something, my friend. Again, this is an inherited
system... I would have set server-wide scavenging long ago...

I need to set the scavenging period at the SERVER level, yes? (simply
enabling the ZONE for scavenging isn't enough)

If I enable this at the SERVER level, it will only scavenge the zones that
are set for such, correct? (that is why I wasn't even looking at the server
settings, I'm trying to do this a zone at a time)

Blake

 

Ahh makes sense

Yep, Scavenging intervals are set on the server level (advanced properties).
I generally recommend that it's set to a 1 Day period.

Enabling it on the server level just tells the process to run. The process
only has permission to execute against the zones you've explicitly enabled
Aging / Scavenging on.

 

Thanks Chris - I'll let you know the outcome

Blake