topic Re: DNS-BIND capability in Operating System - HP-UX

DNS-BIND capability

shan_kutty_03 — Wed, 01 Dec 2004 07:40:24 GMT

How many domain name (URL) can a DNS/BIND server Handle? What command in Hpux can give the maximum capacity of the DNS.

Re: DNS-BIND capability

ramkumar — Wed, 01 Dec 2004 07:46:44 GMT

Hi

you can mention upto maximum of 3 domains . just you have to mention in the resolv.conf file in /etc/ direcotory

Re: DNS-BIND capability

shan_kutty_03 — Wed, 01 Dec 2004 08:10:05 GMT

Hi Ram,
tnx for ur immediate response, i also want to know how we can find the transaction capability for DNS/BIND. or what is the command for the same.

Re: DNS-BIND capability

harry d brown jr — Wed, 01 Dec 2004 08:29:04 GMT

I'm not aware of any maximum number of domains a DNS server can handle. The Internet root servers handle a little more than three domains.

It is true that you can only have three domains listed in resolv.conf, but that has to do with local name resolution, not how a DNS server performs.

Speed of DNS queries depends upon too many factors to be able to give a precise number.

This is a list of some of the factors that have to be taken into consideration:
o Speed of machine
o Bind version
o Size of Zone(s)
o domain hierarchy
o network speed

live free or die
harry d brown jr

Re: DNS-BIND capability

Geoff Wild — Wed, 01 Dec 2004 08:54:02 GMT

There isn't a maximum - for DNS - if there is, it is really high...Think of all those web hosting company's (I myself am a small one) - they handle 100's if not 1000's of domains....

Looking in the Bind 9 Admin Manual - there is no mention of max zones...

http://www.nominum.com/content/documents/bind9arm.pdf

Rgds...Geoff

Re: DNS-BIND capability

Mark Greene_1 — Wed, 01 Dec 2004 11:13:11 GMT

According to the RFC:

http://www.cse.ohio-state.edu/cgi-bin/rfc/rfc1035.html

there is no size restriction on the number of entries, just on the format of the contents. Given that DNS was developed as a distributed database, and that, in theory, any node could accept refresh information from all other DNS servers on the 'Net, the real restrictions are memory and file size limitations imposed by the Operating System under which the DNS server is running.

We can calculate the total number of possible entries by taking the valid IP address ranges for all network classes, plus an SOA and MX record for each network (not a precisely derivable number, but technically each host can be it's own network), plus a minimum of 1 CNAME per A record (unlikely, but the rules allow for it), plus Host and System records for each network class (although not in wide-spread use anymore).

The result is this ridiculously large number that no single DNS implementation will ever have to contend with. IPv6 siginificantly increases this number.

mark

Re: DNS-BIND capability

rick jones — Thu, 02 Dec 2004 12:49:44 GMT

transaction rates for a DNS server will vary considerably by box and revision of BIND and type of transaction.

some performance figures for various revisions of named on HP-UX and other systems can be found at:

ftp://ftp.cup.hp.com/dist/networking/briefs/