MyDNS

On Wed, 22 Dec 2004 11:36:09 -0600 (CST), Ezra Tingler
<etingler@...> wrote:
> What is the best way to generate usage stats from mydns?
> I had a script reading from the log file.  But this requires the debug
> flag, which kills performance.  I think this must be due to no caching
> when running debug.

What kind of stats are you wanting to see?  You can send the mydns
process a SIGUSR1 or SIGUSR2 to have it output some simple stats.  See
manual for more details.

-- 
David Phillips <david@...>
http://david.acz.org/

David,

I think Ezra is probably interested in per-zone stats.  Bind keeps in-memory 
stats on requests per zone.  I don't think mydns does this at the moment, 
though it'd certainly be an interesting and useful feature.

Any comments?

Thanks,
Russell

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "David Phillips" <electrum@...>
To: <mydns-users@...>
Sent: Thursday, December 23, 2004 2:41 PM
Subject: Re: [mydns-users] Stats


> On Wed, 22 Dec 2004 11:36:09 -0600 (CST), Ezra Tingler
> <etingler@...> wrote:
>> What is the best way to generate usage stats from mydns?
>> I had a script reading from the log file.  But this requires the debug
>> flag, which kills performance.  I think this must be due to no caching
>> when running debug.
>
> What kind of stats are you wanting to see?  You can send the mydns
> process a SIGUSR1 or SIGUSR2 to have it output some simple stats.  See
> manual for more details.
>
> -- 
> David Phillips <david@...>
> http://david.acz.org/
>
>
> -------------------------------------------------------
> SF email is sponsored by - The IT Product Guide
> Read honest & candid reviews on hundreds of IT Products from real users.
> Discover which products truly live up to the hype. Start reading now.
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> _______________________________________________
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>

On Thu, 23 Dec 2004 16:56:22 -0500, Russell D. Weiss
<rweiss@...> wrote:
> I think Ezra is probably interested in per-zone stats.  Bind keeps in-memory
> stats on requests per zone.  I don't think mydns does this at the moment,
> though it'd certainly be an interesting and useful feature.

What kind of stats, specifically?  Can you provide a sample?

Since people don't like logging, maybe it would be useful to
optionally have the server track stats and periodically write them to
the database.

-- 
David Phillips <david@...>
http://david.acz.org/

On Fri, 24 Dec 2004 08:27:15 -0200, Rodrigo Avila <rdeavila@...> wrote:
> Talking about that... I can't see the server stats with the SIGUSR1 or
> SIGUSR2. I send this signals to the process, but nothing is showed.
> What I do wrong?

The stats are written to the location specified by "log" in the config
file.  See section B.4 in the manual for more info.

-- 
David Phillips <david@...>
http://david.acz.org/

David/All,

The following is taken from:
http://ou800doc.caldera.com/en/NET_bind/Bv9ARM.ch06.html

I may be wrong, but I'm fairly sure BIND does this on a per-zone basis.  It
also can keep stats in memory while running and only dump them to a file
when it is shut down, so it's not constantly writing to a file...

----------------------------------------------------------

6.2.14.13. The Statistics File
The statistics file generated by BIND 9 is similar, but not identical, to
that generated by BIND 8.

The statistics dump begins with the line +++ Statistics Dump +++
(973798949), where the number in parentheses is a standard Unix-style
timestamp, measured as seconds since January 1, 1970. Following that line
are a series of lines containing a counter type, the value of the counter,
optionally a zone name, and optionally a view name. The lines without view
and zone listed are global statistics for the entire server. Lines with a
zone and view name for the given view and zone (the view name is omitted for
the default view). The statistics dump ends with the line --- Statistics
Dump --- (973798949), where the number is identical to the number in the
beginning line.

The following statistics counters are maintained:


success
 The number of successful queries made to the server or zone. A successful
query is defined as query which returns a NOERROR response other than a
referral response.

referral
 The number of queries which resulted in referral responses.

nxrrset
 The number of queries which resulted in NOERROR responses with no data.

nxdomain
 The number of queries which resulted in NXDOMAIN responses.

recursion
 The number of queries which caused the server to perform recursion in order
to find the final answer.

failure
 The number of queries which resulted in a failure response other than those
above.

Thanks,
Russell

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "David Phillips" <electrum@...>
To: <mydns-users@...>
Sent: Thursday, December 23, 2004 5:40 PM
Subject: Re: [mydns-users] Stats


> On Thu, 23 Dec 2004 16:56:22 -0500, Russell D. Weiss
> <rweiss@...> wrote:
>> I think Ezra is probably interested in per-zone stats.  Bind keeps 
>> in-memory
>> stats on requests per zone.  I don't think mydns does this at the moment,
>> though it'd certainly be an interesting and useful feature.
>
> What kind of stats, specifically?  Can you provide a sample?
>
> Since people don't like logging, maybe it would be useful to
> optionally have the server track stats and periodically write them to
> the database.
>
> -- 
> David Phillips <david@...>
> http://david.acz.org/
>
>
> -------------------------------------------------------
> SF email is sponsored by - The IT Product Guide
> Read honest & candid reviews on hundreds of IT Products from real users.
> Discover which products truly live up to the hype. Start reading now.
> http://productguide.itmanagersjournal.com/
> _______________________________________________
> mydns-users mailing list
> mydns-users@...
> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/mydns-users
>

hi there,

after replacing $this by $item the problem still exists - the select=20
boxes are empty.

any other suggestions?

I'm using apache 2.0.52 and php 4.3.10

register_globals off
magic_quotes on

happy xmas,

regards

michael
Philipp Kern wrote:
> Hi there,
>=20
> the administrative interface to MyDNS provided in contrib/ uses $this a=
s=20
> a normal variable which seems to break under the newest PHP version 4.3=
.10.
>=20
> Only _rr_type_option (line 2408) and rr_type_options (line 2411) seem t=
o=20
> be affected. If you replace $this with something sane like $item it=20
> works fine.
>=20
> function _rr_type_option($type, $item) {
>     return "<OPTION" . (!strcasecmp($type, $item) ? " selected" : "") .=
=20
> ">$item";
> }
> function rr_type_options($type)
> {
>    global $db_valid_types;
>=20
>    reset($db_valid_types);
>    foreach ($db_valid_types as $item)
>       $rv .=3D _rr_type_option($type, $item);
>    return $rv;
> }
>=20
> Regards,
> Philipp Kern
>=20
>=20
>=20
> -------------------------------------------------------
> SF email is sponsored by - The IT Product Guide
> Read honest & candid reviews on hundreds of IT Products from real users=
.
> Discover which products truly live up to the hype. Start reading now.=20
> http://productguide.itmanagersjournal.com/
> _______________________________________________
> mydns-users mailing list
> mydns-users@...
> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/mydns-users


mit freundlichen Gr=FC=DFen

Michael Kummer

--=20
Michael Kummer            | Projekt & Entwicklung: Netzwerk
Fon. 0662 890000 111      | mki GmbH, B=FCro Salzburg
Fax. 0662 890000 115      | Lieferinger-Hauptstr. 47, 5020 Salzburg
 http://www.mkitech.at

From: "Ezra Tingler" <etingler@...>
>
> I have one further question.  Is anyone using MyDNS with bind9 caching
> their recursive lookups?  And if so, how did you go about this?

Sure, I use them both. There's nothing to it. Literally.

I run Bind 9 on one IP address and it knows nothing about my MyDNS 
install except what it learns from the root servers. It's configured just 
like you would configure it were MyDNS not also installed.

I run MyDNS on another IP address and it knows nothing about my Bind 
install except that it hears questions from it when appropriate. It's 
configured just like you would configure it were Bind also not installed.

I see no need for any kind of integration or forwarding of queries from 
MyDNS to Bind. They serve two entirely different functions and work 
independently alongside each other just fine.

David


**

On Wed, 22 Dec 2004 14:27:02 -0500, David S. Madole <david@...> wrote:
> I run Bind 9 on one IP address and it knows nothing about my MyDNS
> install [...]
> 
> I run MyDNS on another IP address and it knows nothing about my Bind
> install [...]
> 
> [...] They serve two entirely different functions and work
> independently alongside each other just fine.

Note that you can do exactly the same thing with MyDNS and djbdns'
dnscache.  There are a number of advantages to dnscache over BIND
(fixed cache size, security, speed, reliability) and for that reason
dnscache is the recommend recursive resolver (by both Don Moore and
me).  But in terms of general functionality, both should work equally
well.

-- 
David Phillips <david@...>
http://david.acz.org/

From: "David Phillips" <electrum@...>
> On Wed, 22 Dec 2004 14:27:02 -0500, David S. Madole <david@...> 
> wrote:
>> I run Bind 9 on one IP address and it knows nothing about my MyDNS
>> install [...]
>>
>> I run MyDNS on another IP address and it knows nothing about my Bind
>> install [...]
>>
>> [...] They serve two entirely different functions and work
>> independently alongside each other just fine.
>
> Note that you can do exactly the same thing with MyDNS and djbdns'
> dnscache.  There are a number of advantages to dnscache over BIND
> (fixed cache size, security, speed, reliability) and for that reason
> dnscache is the recommend recursive resolver (by both Don Moore and
> me).  But in terms of general functionality, both should work equally
> well.

That's true, but it has nothing to do with the original poster's 
question.

Likewise, there are a number of advantages to BIND over dnscache 
(support, open source, functionality, flexibility). I have tried djbdns 
(which dnscache is part of) and I find that I don't care either for it, 
or for DJB himself.

In particular, I prefer to use and support open source software, which 
djbdns is not. Availability of source code does not mean open source.

David


**

Not to descend too far into the below debate ;-), quick question: does MyDNS 
support Dynamic DNS for DHCP clients? And if not, can MyDNS work with another 
DNS server that might? What would be the recommended setup?

(my feelings for the record: djbdns is bizarre to install and configure but 
works great, and it's very compact and fast as a plus; Bind9 has everything 
but the kitchen sink but has historically had quite a few vulnerabilities. 
They both have their advantages. I think the truly free/open software debate 
is a legitimate debate, but I still use tinydns for recursion, because it's 
so fast and lightweight. And, Dr. Bernstein has a probably intentionally 
well-nourished reputation for being rude, uncompromising, and 
smartier-than-thou. ;-) These are all good points. For the record, though, I 
prefer first mydns and second djbdns when they fit the task at hand.)

On Thursday 23 December 2004 01:14 pm, David S. Madole wrote:
> From: "David Phillips" <electrum@...>
>
> > On Wed, 22 Dec 2004 14:27:02 -0500, David S. Madole <david@...>
> >
> > wrote:
> >> I run Bind 9 on one IP address and it knows nothing about my MyDNS
> >> install [...]
> >>
> >> I run MyDNS on another IP address and it knows nothing about my Bind
> >> install [...]
> >>
> >> [...] They serve two entirely different functions and work
> >> independently alongside each other just fine.
> >
> > Note that you can do exactly the same thing with MyDNS and djbdns'
> > dnscache.  There are a number of advantages to dnscache over BIND
> > (fixed cache size, security, speed, reliability) and for that reason
> > dnscache is the recommend recursive resolver (by both Don Moore and
> > me).  But in terms of general functionality, both should work equally
> > well.
>
> That's true, but it has nothing to do with the original poster's
> question.
>
> Likewise, there are a number of advantages to BIND over dnscache
> (support, open source, functionality, flexibility). I have tried djbdns
> (which dnscache is part of) and I find that I don't care either for it,
> or for DJB himself.
>
> In particular, I prefer to use and support open source software, which
> djbdns is not. Availability of source code does not mean open source.
>
> David
>
>
> **
>
>
> -------------------------------------------------------
> SF email is sponsored by - The IT Product Guide
> Read honest & candid reviews on hundreds of IT Products from real users.
> Discover which products truly live up to the hype. Start reading now.
> http://productguide.itmanagersjournal.com/
> _______________________________________________
> mydns-users mailing list
> mydns-users@...
> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/mydns-users

From: "Jamie Becker" <jamie@...>

> Not to descend too far into the below debate ;-), quick question: does 
> MyDNS
> support Dynamic DNS for DHCP clients? And if not, can MyDNS work with 
> another
> DNS server that might? What would be the recommended setup?

No. Actually, I'm not aware of any freely available DNS servers that 
implement dynamic DNS updates except BIND (though I know a few commercial 
ones). Are there any?

I'm not sure what you could do except run BIND to handle your dynamic 
names in a separate zone from the rest of your DNS (probably a sub-domain 
delegated by MyDNS). You would need to use BIND for your recursive 
queries as well, I believe, since doesn't the DHCP client send the update 
to whatever DHCP specifies as a DNS server?

Regarding BIND vs djbdns, your comments were well-founded and insightful. 
On the security issue, I personally don't feel that BIND has any worse 
record than almost any other project of similar complexity, say Apache, 
for example. DJB talks about some 600+ bugs in BIND 9, but almost all of 
them are in alpha, beta, or release-candidate releases, all of which 
exist for the very purpose of finding bugs!

Frankly, it's not a big challenge to write a more secure implementation 
of a program by leaving out most of the features. It's certainly not 
something to be smug about, anyway. If you really don't need the extra 
features, then I suppose it's a good design choice, too. At least until 
you end up in the situation it sounds like you are in now.

David

From: "Jamie Becker" <jamieson@...>
>
> I don't know of any other freely available DNS servers that accept 
> Dynamic DNS
> updates; I'm not sure what services such as dyndns.org use.

Those services don't use standard "Dynamic DNS" updates per se, not like 
a DHCP client would send. They use various non-standard forms of updating 
their backend, typically an HTTP GET request with appropriate variables 
in the query part.

MyDNS is actually exceptionally well suited for that type of service. All 
you need is a simple web page script in PHP or Perl or whatever to update 
the database backend.

> Well, perhaps; but the BIND vulnerabilities previous to 9 were 
> generally
> root-level, while Apache's are generally not.

Not on my servers, because I don't run BIND as root. Few people do. I 
don't run MyDNS as root either. I run both in separate chroot() 
environments. I don't even start them as root, as I have changed my 
kernel IP settings to allow non-root processes to bind low port numbers.

David

On 23 Dec 2004, at 17:39, Jay Barahona wrote:
> ERROR 2002: Can't connect to local MySQL server through sockey 
> 'var/run/mysqld/mysqld.sock' (2)
> Creating database....
> mysqladmin: connect to server at 'localhost' failed

File a bug in Debian's bugtracker via the reportbug utility. With the 
rare information you provide I can't help you further.

Regards,
Philipp Kern
Debian maintainer of the mydns package

Try making sure your database is up.

On Thursday 23 December 2004 10:39 am, Jay Barahona wrote:
> hello,
>
> I keep getting:
>
> ERROR 2002: Can't connect to local MySQL server through sockey
> 'var/run/mysqld/mysqld.sock' (2) Creating database....
> mysqladmin: connect to server at 'localhost' failed
>
>
> any information about the error message would be great
>
> Thanks,
>
> Jay
>
>
> -------------------------------------------------------
> SF email is sponsored by - The IT Product Guide
> Read honest & candid reviews on hundreds of IT Products from real users.
> Discover which products truly live up to the hype. Start reading now.
> http://productguide.itmanagersjournal.com/
> _______________________________________________
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> mydns-users@...
> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/mydns-users

I can only speak for my experience but I use MyDNS 0.11.0 on all 4 of my 
nameservers for nerdie.org.

We currently only process about 150,000 dns requests daily at the 
moment.  We have processed up to 14 million requests in a 24 hour time 
span and it handled just fine.

In the past 6 months that I've been running MyDNS 0.11.0, it hasn't 
crashed once.



Ezra Tingler wrote:

> Hello,
> 
> I am currently in the process of testing mydns.  So far it really works
> well.  I have been load testing it with the same production load we have
> on our production bind 9 servers (which are running from flat text files).  
> And it seems to be holding its own.  
> 
> I have tried the Bind9 DLZ patch, and while it works ok and the idea is 
> there.  It was not designed to run from a database originally.  So there 
> are some issues with performance.  You seem to have taken care of this by 
> designing MyDNS to run from a database.  
> 
> I just have a simple question.
> 
> Would you recommend putting MyDNS 0.11.0 into production as a authoritative 
> name server?  
> 
> Thank you in advance, for your prompt reply?
>

On Wed, 22 Dec 2004 10:45:32 -0600 (CST), Ezra Tingler
<etingler@...> wrote:
> Would you recommend putting MyDNS 0.11.0 into production as a authoritative
> name server?

Yes.  I have been using MyDNS in production in several places, one of
them for about two years.

-- 
David Phillips <david@...>
http://david.acz.org/

Tyler,

Thanks for the info.  I will most likely go with it.  But I am just 
going to have to test it a little more.  We are currently answering 
about 12,960,000 queries per day.  And it seems to be holding up.  I 
will post to the list with periodic stats.  


Thanks
Ezra


On Wed, 22 Dec 2004, Tyler 
Hall wrote:

> I can only speak for my experience but I use MyDNS 0.11.0 on all 4 of my 
> nameservers for nerdie.org.
> 
> We currently only process about 150,000 dns requests daily at the 
> moment.  We have processed up to 14 million requests in a 24 hour time 
> span and it handled just fine.
> 
> In the past 6 months that I've been running MyDNS 0.11.0, it hasn't 
> crashed once.
> 
> 
> 
> Ezra Tingler wrote:
> 
> > Hello,
> > 
> > I am currently in the process of testing mydns.  So far it really works
> > well.  I have been load testing it with the same production load we have
> > on our production bind 9 servers (which are running from flat text files).  
> > And it seems to be holding its own.  
> > 
> > I have tried the Bind9 DLZ patch, and while it works ok and the idea is 
> > there.  It was not designed to run from a database originally.  So there 
> > are some issues with performance.  You seem to have taken care of this by 
> > designing MyDNS to run from a database.  
> > 
> > I just have a simple question.
> > 
> > Would you recommend putting MyDNS 0.11.0 into production as a authoritative 
> > name server?  
> > 
> > Thank you in advance, for your prompt reply?
> > 
> 
> 
> -------------------------------------------------------
> SF email is sponsored by - The IT Product Guide
> Read honest & candid reviews on hundreds of IT Products from real users.
> Discover which products truly live up to the hype. Start reading now. 
> http://productguide.itmanagersjournal.com/
> _______________________________________________
> mydns-users mailing list
> mydns-users@...
> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/mydns-users
> 

-- 
Thanks
Ezra Tingler
318-340-5419
Centurytel Hostmaster
etingler@...

My production servers have currently answered 1,717,251,477 and
1,400,754,625 queries, respectively, without crashing.

I believe most of the crash reports are due to heavy use of AXFR,
although in heavy load testing I have been unable to replicate the
problem.

-- 
     "I never knew words could be so confusing," Milo said to Tock
as he bent down to scratch the dog's ear.
     "Only when you use a lot to say a little," answered Tock.
                             -- Norton Juster, _The Phantom Tollbooth_