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[Jeff Taylor <shdwdrgn AT sourpuss.net>]

Just an FYI for those following along with the progress of the new 
software...

I've been debating various methods of storing zone serials.  Since we're 
limited to a 32-bit number, I wanted to avoid unix timestamps (which run 
out in 2038).  I am making an assumption that TLD zone updates will not 
be generated more than once per minute, so another option is to divide 
the unix timestamp by 60, which would give us a much larger range and 
likely never run out within opennic's lifetime.

The issue here is that I, like many others, prefer the timestamp to be 
in a format that is easily readable and relateable to a date.  If I chop 
off the century and seconds from an LDAP-style timestamp, I get a format 
that is quickly read: 1403231633 (2014 03 23, 16:33). We still run into 
another Y2K problem of running out of digits in the year 2100, but that 
gives us 85 years to start using a 64-bit serial in the DNS zones.

The other issue I've been working on is the script which generates the 
zone files from the data stored in LDAP.  The original script was mostly 
functional, but did not always regenerate in the case of certain 
updates.  This weekend I completely rewrote the script and I believe I 
now have a working solution that minimizes the amount of queries sent to 
the LDAP servers, but still ensures that when a user makes changes to 
their domain, the proper files and serials will be updated.  I am also 
trying to make sure that multiple servers are able to request zone 
updates without each of them generating a whole new set of zone files 
each time, allowing for backup servers to keep a TLD active.

That's about all for now.  I'll be testing the changes later today, then 
I just have one more function to write before opening up the TLDs for 
user access again...