[NTLUG:Discuss] Bind sucks (off topic)

[cbbrowne@ntlug.org]

A.L.Lambert wrote:
> > Are you saying that BIND 'sucks worst than anything ever sucked
> > before. heh...heh...'
> 
> 	I don't know if I'd say worse than ANYTHING ever sucked.  Things
> like Windows, sendmail, wu-ftpd, etc. would probably all rank above BIND
> on the 'suck-factor' scale.  BIND would, however, earn a relatively high
> ranking on such a list (IMHO).  ;)

For a rather different take on the "which DNS server is best?" issue,
I'd suggest pointing to:

"Daniel J. Bernstein's qmail / ezmlm / djbdns / tinydns / publicfile /
ucspi-tcp / daemontools / etc. package is the best of its kind, and is
free / open-source software."
<http://www.linuxmafia.com/~rick/faq/#djb>

Rick Moen's FAQ points at various DNS options in addition to those mentioned:

   "Instead of djbdns/tinydns (Bernstein's DNS nameserver suite): Many of
   us are migrating to Paul Vixie's (the Internet Software Consortium's)
   new but sound-so-far BIND v. 9 codebase, because the old, traditional
   BIND v. 8 package is too crufty and security-bug-filled (and is
   therefore being abandoned). Johannes Erdfelt's dents server remains
   promising, but development appears to be stalled. Suitable alternatives
   for some deployments include Thomas Moestl's permanent-caching
   server pdnsd, Leo A. Marihart III's MaraDNS, Hubert Tonneau's Pliant,
   Salvatore Sanfilippo's Yaku-ns (formerly ENS), Eric Kidd's CustomDNS
   (formerly LiveDNS), Roland Schemer and Rob Riepel's lbnamed, and
   Eddieware's lbdns. (Consider running your choice of name-server
   software chrooted, especially if still using BIND v. 8.)"

If your reaction to Moen's comments goes along the
lines of "But You're Opinionated!", he has an answer
<http://www.linuxmafia.com/~rick/faq/#opinionated> to that too.

None of this prevents you from deciding to use djbdns or tinydns, and
I'll certainly not criticize anyone for deciding to use such, or for
using new/old BIND, so long as you do so with _some_ forethought of the
merits/demerits and the consequences of the choices :-).
-- 
Christopher Browne
<http://www.ntlug.org/~cbbrowne/resume.html>
cbbrowne at acm.org
(613) 225-3689