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Well, I guess it is time to update xbill, adding mainframes to the list of computers to protect...

XBill!!!!! Teach those kids about what needs to be done to prevent Bill the hacker from spreading his Windo.. I mean virus to other computers in the network! This game builds fucking character dammit!

xbill a game that illustrates your fears...

Imagine a cube cluster of Bills... sorry, could not resist...

You play xbill too?

screen captures of me playing Xbill?

Well, there are too many rules in the Battle for Wesnoth. Try xbill instead. :-)

I really love the Cube for its humor value. Anyone remember the "story" of xbill? You have to prevent bill from installing a virus (cleverly disguised as an os) on all computers, or they will all turn into toaster ovens.

And then Apple made a computer that looks like a toaster oven. I thought it was the best joke ever. And how prophetic; the temperature of a modern AMD or Intel powered system tells it all.

Other DNS software

This is a list of some other DNS software out there:

Freely downloadable DNS servers

Caching DNS servers

• BIND 9 is a complete rewrite of BIND, and, as such, probably does not have the security issues that previous versions of BIND has. In fact, one of the BIND developers found a security problem in earlier versions of MaraDNS. Very full-featured, and is the reference standard for the newer DNS RFCs.
• Oak DNS is a DNS server written completely in python. It is compatible (I think) with both BIND zone files and cache files.
• pdnsd is a recursive caching DNS server. Paul Rombouts is the current maintainer of this program.
• Posadis is another DNS server project, similiar to MaraDNS. This server is now both a resolving and an suthoritative DNS server.

Non-recursive DNS servers

• PowerDNS is an authoritative-only DNS server with support for, among other things, SQL. I would like to applaud the PowerDNS developers for making a libre release of this software. Note: Recursive code is in the works; PowerDNS will soon enough be a fully functioning recursive DNS server.
• DnsJAVA is an authoritative-only DNS server written in Java.
• NSD is an authoritative-only DNS server which is compatible with BIND zone files.
• MyDNS is an authoritative-only DNS server which uses MySQL as a database back end.
• The Pliant language/package comes with a DNS server. This DNS server can not recursively process DNS queries given a list of root servers.
• Twisted includes a non-recursive DNS server.
• The Eddit project includes a DNS server
• SheerDNS is a simple non-caching DNS server that stores all records as their own files.

Abandoned DNS server projects

These are DNS server projects which have not released any files for six months or longer, and which never became functioning recursive (caching) DNS servers.

• MooDNS is another DNS server project. A CVS checkout on January 21, 2003 shows that no files have been updated since July 20, 2002, except for a single readme file updated on August 1, 2002. This project is abadoned.

  I have made a tarball available for people who do not want to bother with a CVS checkout.

• Dents is a DNS server that showed a lot of promise. Unfortunatly, no files have been released since 1999.
• Yaku-NS is a DNS server geared towards embedded systems. According to the changelog, no one has made any changes to this software since Feburary, 2001.
• CustomDNS has not released any files since the summer of 2000.

Other

• LdapDNS is a small DNS server which converts DNS requests in to LDAP requests, without caching.
• DnsPython is a DNS toolkit for Python.

No, but you can run XBill and Frozen Bubble. Those games, along with thousands of others, are even better than any you'll find in Windows.

Don't believe me? Read the source code. You can.

Soldier: Sir you're coming too close to our computers
Bill Gates: Come on just try it a little
Soldier: I'm going to have to ask you to step away from the computers!
Bill Gates: Come on here's a CD lemme just install it, it'll only take a minute
Soldier: This is your last warning, if you do not leave this area you will be terminated immediately!
Bill Gates: Here lemme just *reaches for a mouse*
Soldier: FIRE!

*right about here is some gruesome video of bill gates being ripped to shreds from M4 rounds*

Wow it'd be like a real life xBill

Brian Wellington and Matias Duarte.

Who is Brian Wellington and Matias Duarte you say? Well, they are the creators of XBill and let me get out so much aggression. Go pick up the latest copy for your favorite platform.

Brian Wellington and Matias Duarte.

Who is Brian Wellington and Matias Duarte you say? Well, they are the creators of XBill and let me get out so much aggression. Go pick up the latest copy for your favorite platform.

xBill

Perhaps they should be considering banning another violent game as well?

No, they'd rather they played xbill.

if a virus of this sort were possible, and bandwidth bigger it would be interesting to see a rampant virus of Penguins.

You mean, like in xbill?

BTW, what alteratives to BIND exist for Linuxand *BSD? I actually don't know and would like to know.

There are now a number of alternative packages that may have advantages for many deployments. E.g.:

MaraDNS is a general-purpose, fast DNS server package (doing recursive, authoritative, and caching roles, plus fully supporting zone transfers):
http://www.maradns.org/

pdnsd is a small caching-only DNS server with a disk-based cache, suitable for small networks and workstations:
http://home.t-online.de/home/Moestl/

Dnsmasq is a small authoritative and caching DNS server for a group of NATted / IPmasqued machines (optionally pulling names from DHCP leases):
http://www.thekelleys.org.uk/dnsmasq/

DNRD is a small caching-only DNS server for NAT / IPmasq networks:
http://dnrd.nevalabs.org/

MyDNS is a MySQL-based authoritative and caching server (no recursive service) suitable for very large sites. In such roles, it's faster and more responsive than BIND9, even though the latter uses a RAM-based cache:
http://mydns.bboy.net/

ldapdns implements the same idea, except out of an LDAP database. Again, much faster than BIND9:
http://nimh.org/code/ldapdns/

GnuDIP is an authoritative server for Dynamic DNS:
http://gnudip2.sourceforge.net/gnudip-www/

NSD is a high-performance authoritative-only daemon:
http://www.nlnetlabs.nl/nsd/

PowerDNS (open source as of 2002-11-25) is an authoritative-only daemon with a modular structure supporting various back-end information stores such as SQL databases (MySQL, PostgreSQL, Oracle 8i, Oracle 9i, IBM DB2, and others via ODBC), BIND zonefiles and other file formats, and LDAP directories. Supports AXFR zone transfers.
http://www.powerdns.com/products/powerdns/

CustomDNS is a authoritative-only daemon for both static addresses and its variant form of dynamic DNS:
http://customdns.sourceforge.net/

lbnamed is a similar authoritative-only daemon for static and dynamic information, with a load-balancing multi-machine architecture:
http://www.stanford.edu/~riepel/lbnamed/

Posadis is another fast authoritative-only daemon:
http://posadis.sourceforge.net/

dents is another general-purpose DNS server, but is perenially unfinished, and is probably dead, at this point:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/dents/

Pliant DNS Server is another general-purpose DNS server, although it may not support zone transfers:
http://pliant.cx/pliant/protocol/dns/

Yaku-NS is another small, fast general-purpose DNS server:
http://www.kyuzz.org/antirez/ens.html

Twisted Names is an authoritative and caching DNS server, written in Python:
http://twistedmatrix.com/documents/howto/names

Oak DNS Server is an authoritative and caching DNS server, supporting dynamic DNS updates and AAAA records. It's written in Python, and doesn't need to run privileged:
http://www.digitallumber.com/oak

dnsjava is a minimal, authoritative-only server, a resolver library, and a set of DNS utilities, all written in Java:
http://www.xbill.org/dnsjava/

Related:

FireDNS is a client library for DNS requests, with emphasis on speed and asynchronous processing. Written in C, and has low-timeout blocking functions. Can be used to relace standard libc resolver library functions like getbyhostname with much faster equivalent code:
http://ares.penguinhosting.net/~ian/

GNU adns is a resolver library for C (and C++) programs, and a collection of useful DNS resolver utilities:
http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~ian/adns/

Proprietary packages include:

UltraDNS (UltraDNS Corporation)
djbdns/tinydns
ATLAS (Verisign)
BINDPlus (Information Network Eng. Group, Inc.)
Global Name Service (Nominum, Inc.)
NeDNS (Neteka, Inc.)

I maintain this list at http://linuxmafia.com/~rick/linux-info/dns-servers

Rick Moen
rick@linuxmafia.com

I bet Microsoft would change their mind if only the letter's author would mention xbill.

Actually, maybe they should make a version of xbill where a pengiun is running around trying to install linux xboxes?

As you can see xbill has been out a lot longer than your precious OS, which is to be expected as all your good ideas were stolen from Unix.

``I guess people prefer not having to reboot their phones.''
Not to mention having to insert the Windows CD and entering that CD-key with the phone keypad every time the thing screws up. It reminds me of the series of If MicroSoft Made Cars jokes. Of course everyone knows that the only thing M$ is after making is toaster ovens.

---
Do not meddle in the affairs of wizards, for they are subtle and quick to anger.

Maybe I just haven't bothered to look hard enough,

Like maybe an actual search?

but I didn't know there were any other Open Source name servers out there.

You mean, like these?

• CustomDNS
• DENTS
• djbdns
• dnsmasq
• DNSJava
• dProxy
• MaraDNS
• MyDNS
• pDNSd
• Posadis

djbdns doesn't count and we both already know that

Ah, I see. It's not "Open Source" software because it isn't published under an "Open Source" license, right? (sigh) Dan Bernstein is a total security freak. He doesn't trust ANYBODY. He especially doesn't trust anybody to distribute modified, binary versions of his software, ruining his reputation when one of their "enhancements" results in a security hole. This already happened once when a Qmail add-on was discovered to have a security problem, and thereby tarnished Qmail's otherwise perfect security record.

So he ONLY authorizies distribution of his ORIGINAL source code. No modifications allowed, except as diffs to the originals. And if you apply those diffs and something breaks, don't blame him; blame the author of the diff.

You might disagree with Dan; he's a hard-nosed, inflexible so-and-so. But he's got style, and his programs are a beautiful model of efficiency.

The Open Source community could use a few more people like Dan.

and we both already know that so don't bother with beating that dead horse.

Such Style! Such Wit! Such Argument! Such Rhetoric! Such Unquestionable Authority!

Such a sterling example of my sigfile:

What, you mean like this.

I wonder how long it will take for someone to port xbill (which would be more popular than Quake according to the xbill homepage) to the XBox... there is a port for Win32 available, so it shouldn't be too impossible.

Why? Just use Secure FTP works great. Punch a hole in that damn firewall.

there already is.

---

Among the things these trademarks cover is the use of X to describe an OS that can play games. I half expect Microsoft to go suing Linux distros and UNIX vendors to drop games from their distributions or stop using the term X.

This is all because someone wrote that damn xbill game. Trademarking X gives Bill Gates the right to sue that game out of existence!

Actually, in all seriousness, I have to wonder. I was in an EB store and saw a large green X displayed and saw the tm sign and went searching and found the two above trademarks for X.

I suspect a Java implementation would perform acceptably too.

I'm not sure it would, though I have no evidence either way. Until recently Java applications have been fairly resource intensive, and the garbage collection has been variable (eg flushing at inconvenient times and bringing the system temporarily to a crawl). On the other hand, the progress in JVMs has been marvelous! I'm a Java programmer by profession so would love to see it get to the point where we can rewrite some of the more fundamental infrastructure apps in Java but I'm just not sure it's there yet.

If you want to volounteer your enterprise server, feel free to try dnsjava :-)

BTW. I disagree that this is a low level application. Device drivers are lowlevel applications. You typically find them at the bottom layer of the OSI model. Bind would classify for the application layer (almost at the top).

I'm sure you're not deliberately misunderstanding me, and I'm not going to get into an argument about semantics. Yes you are right it's at the application layer. By low level I meant (sorry if I wasn't clearer) a process just left running in the background that isn't visibly noticed or really changed 99% of the time.

Then, you hammer down the fact that it is possible to create safe programs in C. But then my simple question is: why the hell do we have all these security leaks? Bind isn't an incident, it's just the latest leak to be found. Probably a solution will be provided in the form of a patch. However, this patch won't fix the fundamental problem, it will just fix the symptom and in the future more bugs will be found.

We've been over why we have security leaks previously in this thread. We have identified fundamental problem which is we need to (a) make sure programmers do not make basic mistakes or (b) ensure programmers use tools to catch these mistakes or (c) use a compiler or interpreter (note: not language) that catches these automatically.

It appears to me to be a straight shoot-out between C and Java, unless you can give us some of the "plenty of alternatives to C" (preferably ones with comprehensive libraries). Can someone who has worked on implementing a JVM indicate the performance of a machine with nameserver (along with httpd, ftd, etc) all written in Java?

Phillip.

No link to www.xbill.org. I wonder if I should be offended.