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BIND Is Most Popular DNS Server
bleachboy writes "Last week I completed a new DNS server survey, since D. J. Bernstein's hasn't been updated for years. Not surprisingly, BIND wins. Why is it so hard for alternate DNS servers to gain favor, especially when BIND can be so frustrating sometimes? And yes, I'm shilling."
probably since most distros (BSD & Linux) include BIND as their default DNS server. People are lazy.
the old mighty conservative geeks wins again!
Becuase no matter what ridiculous flaws it has in it, it's the de facto standard by which all other (frequently superior) systems are measured. People figure "gee.... I wanna learn DNS servers", they think BIND. They think "gee.... I wanna learn SMTP servers". They think sendmail.
It's the same flawed system that supports Windows, but executed to a much greater extent. People are familiar with it, so despite the fact that BIND and sendmail are absolute abominations, they get used.
The geeks bitch about people using Windows even though "such far superior" systems exist as alternatives, but we keep using the horrendous abortion that is BIND even though there are superior alternatives that are free. I guess we can't stand the taste of our own medicine, hm?
Alito: A vote for Alito is a punch in the eye to put that bitch back in her place!
Actually, the BIND zone file layout is error prone. How many times have you forgotten to update a serial number? How many times have you forgotten to put a dot at the end of a name?
Also, BIND allows you to mix caching and authoritative services. Not only is this insecure in nature, it's insecure in BIND's implementation. Much safer to have them on different IP addresses.
-russ
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
The fact that sendmail is also frustrating, is default install on Linux and BSD, and is the most popular for mail shows that this theory is pretty much true.
I also know I am amungst the lazy ranks.
Evolution or ID?
- Dan
I think that the best definition of "heavy lifting" is not the size of the installed base or the average number of domains per server, but instead the total number of queries served. Those numbers of course are hard to estimate.
You mean there are other DNS servers? Holy sh*t! I've actually used a couple of different ones on pre OS X Macs. DNS servers more than most other pieces of software are invisible until it breaks. You just never really think about it once you get the sucker running(unless you do something serious as opposed to what I do). Plus in the early days, the Internet was large public research project whose infrastructure was made by task forces rather than market forces, so a task force made a tool for the job and that was that. Combine that with the inertia that builds up behind a successful product and there's little incentive to change. We know it, we like it, it works, and it's free. Why bother with anything else unless you're running Mac OS 8 or something funky like that?
If DJB were not such an ass, his software would be on everywhere now. He is smart, you can feel that. But come on, he thinks that if he has thought about something, it's right and it cannot be disproved. You simply can't. He won't accept a thing.
/package etc.), and if you change them from the source, you violate his license!
Look at where daemontools installs itself, and of course the other thingies from him, like djbdns and qmail. The default directories cannot be changed (/service,
He's still refusing to fix the extern int errno; problem, because he thinks that it is not a problem. (Everybody should follow his standards, not glibc or anything like that) He still does not apply QMAILSCANNER patch into qmail. You need to go and get netqmail for that, or apply the patches it provices manually. You cannot distribute a patched qmail, therefore you cannot distribute a proper qmail package for your distribution without begging him!
djbdns assumes that you have a.ns.yourdomain.com b.ns.yourdomain.com etc. The add-ns program does not even get any argument about that. (Of course, you can edit the files manually).
And as far as I know, many distributions kicked his software out, including several *BSDs.
The alternatives have not-so-subtle incompatibilities with BIND and existing practice, are not proven in the field, or are unmaintained by the original developer. In fact, BIND is often deliberately incompatible with its previous versions, so it shouldn't be too hard to beat it in this area, but apparently it is.
tinydns, which was mentioned by the story submitter, is unmaintained, like most (if not all) software that Mr Bernstein has ever released. (This is especially problematic because Mr Bernstein refuses to license the software for a fork.) It does not even compile on modern systems, and it uses a non-standard zone file format. In the days of BIND 4 and BIND 8, all that pain was probably justified, but with BIND 9, things are rather different.
In my experience, in the area of caching full resolvers, BIND 9 simply lacks serious competition, feature-wise, and in terms of ease of administration and interoperability. For authoritative-only servers, RIPE's nsd is an alternative, but BIND 9 is typically not such a big trouble that running two different name servers is really needed.
BIND - like Sendmail - is popular because it works. They might be ugly, buggy (as in security problems), whatever, but they are old and people know them.
Here at
Seriously, I have nothing against BIND. But you should always that there are liars, damn liars, and statictians.
Always value the individual over the system. --Bruce Lee "I don't need a Sig - I have a custom 191" - me
I believe that most people use BIND because it is already used by most people. For the most part, people are afraid of being different. There are some things the people just use blindly even though there may be superior alternatives available; such as BIND, MS Windows, MS Office, Sendmail.
Seriously, MyDNS requires an SQL database. This is NOT a way of making things easier!
I've never understood what problem people have with BIND. It's as simple as it could possibly be. Everything makes clear sense. The config files are plaintext. It's backwards compatible almost to eternity. I use it because it's the best solution, not the only one.
"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
"Why is it so hard for alternate DNS servers to gain favor ?"
/. that people don't want to use it for the most core function of the Internet.
Can be rewritten as:
"Why people don't switch to djdns (which install in stupid places, is mostly unmaintained, is written by an offensive asshole, and that you cannot fork/modify) ?"
or
"Why people don't switch to MyDNS (that just reached version 0.11, indicating that it is really stable) ?"
Jezus. What are people thinking ? He versions his software as 0.11 and then complains publically on
He said "human-friendly". That's a computer program.
That's a hallmark of djb programs. File formats are very easy for machines to parse. Easy to parse tends to equate with being less human friendly.
Some people find DJB difficult to get on with and/or were turned off by the whole problem around (non) distribution of modified versions of qmail, and so avoid DJB's other offerings
I have to say that this is the largest and most insurmountable reason for me against using either his DNS server or his mail server.
I was a big fan of his back in the days of UUCP, but his unwillingness to let distributions of BSD, Linux, etc. modify and distribute his software (without some kind of source-based patching hack sans binaries) was a snub to all of us who have contributed to open source software over the years, and a clear indication of a lack of concern over the larger needs of his audience.
Let me be clear: he's WELL WITHIN HIS RIGHTS, and he's even going out of his way to distribute his stuff, which is great. But to say "I'm going to play ball with you, but only if you use my ball, and in the following ways" doesn't fly for me. There are many good alternatives to his code, and they all have their own advantages and disadvantages. Thanks for playing, though.
Random question: am I the only one who loves MySQL to death, but thinks that it's also horribly overused for EVERYTHING?
:P
I mean....yes, it's incredibly fast. Scalable. Low overhead. But when everything from e-mail to DNS depends on MySQL....it gets a little sickening
You don't need a datbase server for everything, no matter how it is that you can say "I run my DNS servers off of a MySQL database." It's still way overused.
This is a major weakness of Open Source because since software is under constant development and bug fixing and security hole patching is priority, few programs ever become feature complete.
Hm..I consider most software to be an evolutionary process. You start out with a need, you write the software, and then someone else sees a little bit further out and says, "gee, I like what you've done, but it would be so much more useful if it [insert most wanted feature here]". I can't think of a single piece of software I've used that had everything I wanted. I don't think there will ever by one, either. It's like the bear and the mountain - each new version is another mountain, and once we get to the other side, we're apt to see more things we'd like the software to do for us.
by actually using the words instead of symbols? Also you neglect the ::'s and :'s which is probably even more confusing when youve got IPv6 addresses thown in too :/