Removing Zones

Depending on the configuration, you may or may not be able to delete or schedule the deletion of a zone and all its contents. Superusers can determine which group of users are allowed to delete or schedule the deletion of a zone and all its contents. For information about how to configure the recursive deletion of zones, see Configuring Recursive Deletions of Networks and Zones.
Note that you must have Read/Write permission to all the subzones and resource records in order to delete a zone. The possible effects of removing or re-parenting are illustrated in figure Removing or Reparenting Subzones.
The appliance puts all deleted objects in the Recycle Bin, if enabled. You can restore the objects if necessary. When you restore a parent object from the Recycle Bin, all its contents, if any, are re-parented to the restored parent object. For information about the Recycle Bin, see Using the Recycle Bin.
Removing or Reparenting Subzones

If you choose to reparent the subzones, be aware of the following caveats and possible effects of the reparenting:

• You cannot remove a zone and reparent its subzones if at least one of the subzones is a delegated zone. You must first remove any delegated subzones, and then you can remove the zone and reparent its subzones.
• If there are AD (Active Directory) subzones (_msdcs, _sites, _tcp, _udp, domaindnszones, foresetdnszones) and you opt to remove the parent zone only, the NIOS appliance reparents all subzones except the AD subzones, which it removes regardless of the removal option you specify.
• The subzone reparenting option is unavailable when you select multiple zones for removal.
• A record created under a top-level reverse-mapping zone is reparented when its immediate parent zone is created. If that parent zone is deleted, the record is restored to the top-level reverse-mapping zone.

Examples:

Example 1:
Step 1 - Add 10.in-addr.arpa under . (root zone)
Step 2 - If you add 10.in-addr.arpa, it is created under . (root zone)
Step 3 - if you add in-addr.arpa, then 10.in-addr.arpa is reparented under in-addr.arpa

Example 2

• Deleting in-addr.arpa from the hierarchy might lead to 10.in-addr.arpa reparenting under . (root zone), depending on the Remove zone only/ Remove all subzones option you select.
• If in-addr.arpa is restored, it is restored under . (root) zone with all its resource records.
  
  

Example 3

• Consider in-addr.arpa zone having 10.10.in-addr.arpa + 10.0.0.1 (PTR record)
• If you add 10.in-addr.arpa, then 10.10.in-addr.arpa is reparented under 10.in-addr.arpa
• and 10.0.0.1 PTR record is reparented from in-addr.arpa to 10.in-addr.arpa.
• If you delete 10.in-addr.arpa, then 10.10.in-addr.arpa is reparented under in-addr.arpa (depending on the Remove zone only/ Remove all subzones option) and 10.0.0.1 PTR record is deleted along with 10.in-addr.arpa zone.
• When you remove a zone and reparent its subzones, any subzone that inherited its admin access settings from its previous parent zone (as opposed to having specific access settings for the subzone) now receive their settings from its new parent zone, which might be different. See the following figure:

Changed Admin Access Settings after Reparenting Subzones

… the admin access settings for subzone C change because the privileges for its new parent zone (zone A) are different from those of its previous parent zone (zone B).
Before you remove zone B, subzone C inherits a "Deny" admin access setting from zone B. After the removal, subzone C inherits "Read/Write" access from its new parent zone, zone A.
Note that if you set a specific "Deny" admin access privilege for subzone C before removing its parent zone (zone B), subzone C retains its specified "Deny" setting.

To remove a zone:

1. From the Data Management tab, select the DNS tab -> Zones tab.
2. Click the checkbox of the zones you want to delete.
3. Click the Delete icon.
4. Select one of the following. Note that these options appear only if you are allowed to delete zones and all its contents. For information about how to configure this, see Configuring Recursive Deletions of Networks and Zones.
   • Remove zone only: Select this to remove the zone and all its content. The appliance reparents all subzones to the parent zone of the zone that you want to remove, except for the automatically created AD (Active Directory) subzones.
   • Remove all subzones: Select this to remove the selected zone, all its subzones, and all the resource records of the selected zone and its subzones.
5. Click Yes. Grid Manager displays a warning message. Click Yes to continue or No to cancel the process. Note that this process may take a longer time to complete depending on the size of the data.
   

You can also schedule the deletion for a later time. Click Schedule Deletion and in the Schedule Change panel, enter a date, time, and time zone. For information, see Scheduling Deletions. For information about scheduling recursive deletions of zones, see Scheduling Recursive Deletions of Network Containers and Zones.