That’s very surprising. My experience is pretty much any Linux distribution on pretty much any hardware can easily run a DNS server and the CPU won’t break a sweat, also a DNS server should not care much about HDD capacity/performance since most operations will be RAM based. I have 10 year old P3 Xeon servers and single core ATOM servers running BIND and always load the latest version of the Linux distribution. I happen to use CentOS but only because that’s what I’ve always used, I can’t believe it really matters. If you load lots of packages you don’t need, they shouldn’t be consuming resources anyway, but it’s more stuff to disable or firewall for security reasons so why load unnecessary packages.
I wouldn’t try to use a laptop though, old or otherwise. Maybe something like a NUC, but not a laptop. From: David Milholen via Af Sent: Sunday, October 05, 2014 2:19 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [AFMUG] update an old ubuntu server Take a look at this https://www.debian.org/releases/wheezy/i386/ch02s01.html.en Other Os's have similar pages. I prefer debian for my DNS systems because there isnt much bloated front end apps that get auto loaded with a downloaded image. Also, I find it easier to tailor for specifics for the dns. Processor definitely will affect overall performance if it has to do more with ATPI or other automated power saving garb that may not be needed. So, by choosing a good OS to fit the hardware will make some serious impact on performance. Some of this may be over kill for a dns server because I see alot of OS's loaded onto older laptops and performance very noticeable there. I am not saying it wont work or perform so poorly is noticeable but consider processor capacity for DNS request in the 100's if it is needed. I starting seeing the hit early 2 yrs ago and we had to move to a larger processor to handle those requests. On 10/5/2014 1:06 PM, Eric Kuhnke via Af wrote: I don't see what processor has to do with it, a bare Debian 7.x CLI-only install will run just a well on an old system as an ancient version of Debian.... I have several virtual machines with debian and relatively restricted CPU power, only 128MB or 256MB of RAM, serving as nameservers. Runs just fine with 3.14 kernel. On Fri, Oct 3, 2014 at 6:53 PM, David Milholen via Af <[email protected]> wrote: I would do a debian 6 bare metal install no extras just os minimal install. If its older Hardware less than 2g processor then back it down to debian 4 or use crunchbang, Knopix or something lite weight to make the Hardware sing and not try to keep up with bloated code. Then load power dns to get your dns up and running quick. On 10/2/2014 12:06 PM, That One Guy via Af wrote: 8.04.3 is the version I just need to patch it, its actually a turnkey linux server so it checks tunkeys repositories, i might have to change those files that tell it where to look Most of the commands it doesnt recognize This is an old DNS server managed through webmin, its a backup so its not a big deal if it gets messed up pushing it through an update i know its better to just build a new server and all that, I dont care right now, we are replacing these soon anyway Any body know what I need to do to upgrade it? -- All parts should go together without forcing. You must remember that the parts you are reassembling were disassembled by you. Therefore, if you can't get them together again, there must be a reason. By all means, do not use a hammer. -- IBM maintenance manual, 1925 -- --
