DNS Zone Backup
A DNS zone backup is a saved copy of all [[dns|DNS]] records in a zone file (BIND format or equivalent) that can be used to restore or replicate DNS configuration after accidental deletion, provider outage, or [[registrar-migration|registrar migration]]. Zone files are plain-text exports containing every record type—A, AAAA, CNAME, MX, TXT, NS, SOA, and others—along with their TTL values. Best practices call for automated, versioned backups stored in a separate provider account or source-control repository, ensuring that a catastrophic DNS change can be reversed within minutes rather than requiring manual reconstruction from memory.
Example
Before changing nameservers during a hosting migration, you export the full BIND zone file and commit it to Git, so you have a timestamped record of every DNS record in case the migration goes wrong.