At 3/18/02 12:31 PM, Kirk Fletcher wrote: >Hey all, > >We provide URL forwarding with domain rego, and have (by >default) been using bind as our nameserver. Needless to >say, this is handling LOTS of domains now - and we should >probably have moved to a db-based nameserver long ago (at >the moment, the flat-file zones used by bind are being >generated by a script). > >My question, to anyone in the know, is to ask which is >the best alternative to bind? Is there a db-based >nameserver out there that can easily handle thousands >of entries? The database-based requirement is important, >since I'd like to be able to change settings for an >individual name in real-time (instead of generating >flat-files in one batch). Though I normally cling to >the free software option, I'm willing to use a >commercial vendor in this case (if need be). So - >any advice/opinions/comments?
Well, are you actually having problems with BIND? I'm running several thousand domains from flat files with it (generated from a database), and it works well enough as long as I use "ndc reconfig" after adding or removing zones, and "ndc reload zonename" to update a changed zone. Using a plain "ndc reload" is bad and causes it to stop responding for a few seconds, but for the most part you can avoid that with the two commands above. The other main free alternative for Unix systems is djbdns: http://cr.yp.to/djbdns.html Many people swear by it, and it has some seductive features. In the end, I found it too weird for my taste, and continue to use BIND even though it's imperfect; there's something to be said for using "the standard" software to ease support (when something goes wrong with BIND, I can pretty much guarantee that someone else has had and solved the same problem). Finally, if you're feeling brave, BIND 9 can use PostgreSQL as a database backend. It didn't appear to be very stable last time I checked. You may find that a better forum for discussing DNS issues from an ISP perspective is: http://isp-lists.isp-planet.com/isp-dns/ Hope that helps. -- Robert L Mathews, Tiger Technologies "The trouble with doing something right the first time is that nobody appreciates how difficult it was."
