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I have to mention DJB whenever there's a mention of DNS. Thank you PRJ, JdeBP, smarden, skarnet. You have done a shitload for me and my close (and distant) on

by contras1970 10y ago

I have to mention DJB whenever there's a mention of DNS. Thank you PRJ, JdeBP, smarden, skarnet. You have done a shitload for me and my close (and distant) ones. https://cr.yp.to/donations.html https://cr.yp.to/donations.html PS In case you've been wondering, djbdns+curvedns is a very capable implementation of DNS servers and client-side utilities. Both authoritative server and recursive cache; each independent of the other. Plus wonderful commandline utilities for various kinds of DNS queries.

jldugger 10y ago
Capable how? Does it support IPv6 queries? IPv6 records? SRV records? How about a syntax for defining a TXT record that doesn't involve octal?
- contras1970 10y ago
  Capable more than enough in all the ways that mattered to me, my employers and their customers throughout this millenium. IPv6 records require a patch. Any records defined for IPv4 are supported out-of-the-box (your last question gives away you know this and the encoding used in the tinydns database). What was your point?
  - jldugger 10y ago
    My point is that it's feature set is not from this millennium.
    - JdeBP 10y ago
      It was rather spoiled by the fact that your knowledge of djbdns is not from this millennium. Felix von Leitner's work dates from back at the turn of the century, and it went into things like the NetBSD packaged djbdns very quickly.
- JdeBP 10y ago
  IPv6 records and SRV records were supported from the start, Bernstein himself explaining that the generic binary record format covered that. The syntax wasn't pretty, but the support was there. Extensions to the database source form that are prettier have been around for many years. I have a DNS database with this record in it, for example: +jdebp.info:2001_41d0_2_aa92_0_ff_fe23_8e7a An SRV record would be S_sip._udp.jdebp.info::sip.jdebp.info:5060:10:20 Queries over an IPv6 transport have been supported since at least the year 2000, that work having been done by Felix von Leitner. Peter Conrad built DNSSEC support on top of M. von Leitner's work.
SwellJoe 10y ago
Sure, there are somewhat simpler DNS servers than BIND, of which djbdns is a good example, but realistically speaking, the reasons to avoid BIND are historic and no longer relevant. BIND has seen multiple major overhauls since the bad old BIND 4 days, and its security has been fine for more than a decade. In the past I would talk about other DNS servers as reasonable things to spend time on (and have contributed to alternative DNS servers in a variety of ways in the distant past), but these days, I tend to say "just use BIND." All of the docs you're going to find on the web are about BIND. BIND gets new standards first, because that's the implementation that the standards authors use and work on. BIND gets more real world testing than all other DNS servers combined. In short: It's fast enough, secure enough, and has more features than anything else. The only downside may be that it is somewhat intimidating, but BIND configuration maps more closely to the standards docs than anything else...so, if you understand BIND you understand DNS and vice versa, which is not as true of some of the others that try to be simpler to configure. BIND is DNS in more ways than any other server so clearly is the service it provides. DJB software is/was great, but there's rarely a reason to go that route for most users most of the time, today.
- contras1970 10y ago
  BIND has seen multiple major overhauls since the bad old BIND 4 days Yes, thanks for supporting my argument in such a forceful way. As you say, BIND has needed multiple major overhauls over the same period that has seen djbdns simple be there, finished.
  - SwellJoe 10y ago
    I didn't know we were arguing. I'm not trying to dissuade you from using djbdns.
- contras1970 10y ago
  DJB software is/was great, but there's rarely a reason to go that route for most users most of the time, today. You may very well be right, most people at any period of time are in way above their level of knowledge and consequently have no sense of quality. Let me just say that I never met a BIND person who would have an idea about the distinctions between the delegation tree, the on-the-wire protocol, and the BIND zone file format. (Not that i can blame them.)

jldugger 10y ago

Capable how? Does it support IPv6 queries? IPv6 records? SRV records? How about a syntax for defining a TXT record that doesn't involve octal?

contras1970 10y ago
Capable more than enough in all the ways that mattered to me, my employers and their customers throughout this millenium. IPv6 records require a patch. Any records defined for IPv4 are supported out-of-the-box (your last question gives away you know this and the encoding used in the tinydns database). What was your point?
- jldugger 10y ago
  My point is that it's feature set is not from this millennium.
  - JdeBP 10y ago
    It was rather spoiled by the fact that your knowledge of djbdns is not from this millennium. Felix von Leitner's work dates from back at the turn of the century, and it went into things like the NetBSD packaged djbdns very quickly.
JdeBP 10y ago
IPv6 records and SRV records were supported from the start, Bernstein himself explaining that the generic binary record format covered that. The syntax wasn't pretty, but the support was there. Extensions to the database source form that are prettier have been around for many years. I have a DNS database with this record in it, for example: +jdebp.info:2001_41d0_2_aa92_0_ff_fe23_8e7a An SRV record would be S_sip._udp.jdebp.info::sip.jdebp.info:5060:10:20 Queries over an IPv6 transport have been supported since at least the year 2000, that work having been done by Felix von Leitner. Peter Conrad built DNSSEC support on top of M. von Leitner's work.

SwellJoe 10y ago

Sure, there are somewhat simpler DNS servers than BIND, of which djbdns is a good example, but realistically speaking, the reasons to avoid BIND are historic and no longer relevant. BIND has seen multiple major overhauls since the bad old BIND 4 days, and its security has been fine for more than a decade. In the past I would talk about other DNS servers as reasonable things to spend time on (and have contributed to alternative DNS servers in a variety of ways in the distant past), but these days, I tend to say "just use BIND." All of the docs you're going to find on the web are about BIND. BIND gets new standards first, because that's the implementation that the standards authors use and work on. BIND gets more real world testing than all other DNS servers combined. In short: It's fast enough, secure enough, and has more features than anything else. The only downside may be that it is somewhat intimidating, but BIND configuration maps more closely to the standards docs than anything else...so, if you understand BIND you understand DNS and vice versa, which is not as true of some of the others that try to be simpler to configure. BIND is DNS in more ways than any other server so clearly is the service it provides. DJB software is/was great, but there's rarely a reason to go that route for most users most of the time, today.

contras1970 10y ago
BIND has seen multiple major overhauls since the bad old BIND 4 days Yes, thanks for supporting my argument in such a forceful way. As you say, BIND has needed multiple major overhauls over the same period that has seen djbdns simple be there, finished.
- SwellJoe 10y ago
  I didn't know we were arguing. I'm not trying to dissuade you from using djbdns.
contras1970 10y ago
DJB software is/was great, but there's rarely a reason to go that route for most users most of the time, today. You may very well be right, most people at any period of time are in way above their level of knowledge and consequently have no sense of quality. Let me just say that I never met a BIND person who would have an idea about the distinctions between the delegation tree, the on-the-wire protocol, and the BIND zone file format. (Not that i can blame them.)