BIND Support

Hi,

Do You have any plans for support BIND as DNS server. Personally I don’t like the djbdns package. It’s complicated to get AXFR working and edit config files. With BIND it would be really easy, just few lines of config.

Thanks,
Robert

Hi Robert

I personally like powerDNS and think this might be a better alternative.

It should be easy to do transfers, and should be easy to integrate, cluster etc and is very current with the very latest standards including dnssec.

I hope you don’t mind my thoughts

Many thanks

John

Hi John,

Thanks for sharing your thoughts, it’s appreciated.

I think maybe the solution is an interface, and some custom implementations for handling the config generation. Maybe some solution like the plugin system. So if somebody does not like the current implementations, or want to use an officially not supported DNS sever then (s)he can write a simple plugin for handling the generation. I think a standard interface han handle this. As i know powerDNS can handle BIND configurations too, so the switch beetwen them can be really easy. I don’t know if the current plugin system is capable of this, but i think it can be extended.

Robert

Hi Robert

A thought has just occurred to me, which could give interworx a USP which I don’t think any CP offers as follows.

If switched to full powerDNS, clustering becomes extremely easy but more, it should allow all hosting accounts to be fully shared on geographically different servers in different countries, and as powerDNS can implement geoip, should give a better result over CDN and provide full high speed website access to most countries based on local servers (I personally think it should be as an agreement between friends etc) in real time as most use Mysql for the data, and all that would be needed in principle would be Mysql duplication, and some content as well as dns, but if using PDNS, it also uses Mysql, so it might be a better implantation and also, should give full fail over I believe.

I’m sorry if I’m wrong, it could just be my mind working overtime and its just a thought.

Many thanks

John

Hi John,

There is no need of MySQL replication because powerDNS can be superslave, and use SQLite as backend. A minimal hardware is enough for the slave servers, because MySQL is only needed for the master.

Robert

I’m gonna be a pain here and bump this.

The option to support BIND is something we’d REALLY like to see - as it’s becoming increasingly painful to try and integrate InterWorx into our central DNS service that we run.

I’m not sure if our use-case is super-specific, but we operate a number of different services from shared hosting right through to colo, and much as I like the TinyDNS/DJBDNS implementation in InterWorx, as others have mentioned getting zone transfers and other such things to work is just painful. Sadly other products are all geared up to work with BIND primarily, with some having a limited support for PowerDNS too.

Even if there was a way to have the InterWorx systems sync via some kind of RNDC compatible middleware, that would be a massive improvement.

Jon

Hi Hacman

I hope your well and long time since you’ve posted

I let IW know about your post, as it is a post to IW but think due to lockdowns, there is delays

You may want to email directly for a quicker answer

In the meantime, I guess you may have seen this (old and unsupported now), which may or may not work for you and also am I correct in thinking you use PowerDNS

Many thanks and stay safe

John

Much of what drew me to Interworx years ago was its tough-as-nails mail system. Nothing like a Qmail toaster for setting and forgetting with relative peace of mind. But that was then. Now I very much look forward to Interworx replacing Qmail and djbdns with Postfix and BIND. Or at least a DNS server two-thirds compatible with BIND. PowerDNS is interesting, particularly as an optional plugin.

Hi John,

Very well thanks - hope you are too!

Yes - we’ve been a bit quiet around here lately, as we’ve focused on some other areas of business, and being honest were actually starting to look at moving away from InterWorx for a period (though we’ve in the end decided to stay put for the time being).

We saw that script a while back, and looked at the idea of developing an extended version - as we need functionality to both add and remove domains when they appear / disappear on the InterWorx systems respectively.

We’re not actually using PowerDNS currently, it’s just something a few of us are familiar with. Personally I feel BIND does the job, and is sort of the standard to get working first, with PowerDNS being an additional functionality if that makes sense. BIND for all it can be a pain works nicely once you get it going.

Jon

Hello!

So weird–I responded to this last week but for some reason the post didn’t actually…post. :frowning: Sorry about that!

Regarding replacing tinydns/djbdns, I spoke to the dev team and while that is on the table, it is not slated for this quarter. I believe that they are looking at PowerDNS for the replacement, but I did let them know that there are requests for BIND.

Replacing Postfix with qmail is also in the works. It was a goal for last quarter, but was pushed back a little bit. There has been some work on the project, though, and it is still on the roadmap as a goal for this quarter. :slight_smile:

Let me know if you have any questions!

-Jenna