Amiga Name Servers???

[impactor]

Hi to you all, :-D  

I am new to the forum, although I have been visiting the site on and off for years as I have always kept an eye on the Amiga world.

My current BIG project (purely for my personal use) is to set up my own name servers, why you ask?  Well, because I want to challenge myself and host my own domain so I thought this seemed like fun :-? - I was going to use BIND on a Windows machine and linux machine.  However, I got thinking why don't I put my Amiga's to use as they have been sleeping in the loft for many years and need to do something as it criminal they are redundant!  So, I thought I would see if it is possible to run any DNS software on them.  

Well, anyways, I have got 2 towered A1200 Amigas, one has a Blizzard '040 40MHz accelerator and 8MB RAM and the other has a '030 50Mhz and 4MB RAM, they both have hard drives.  I have Amiga OS 3.5.

Any help you guys could give me would be really appreciated.  I am not a network engineer or anything, just an IT enthusiast and an Amigan!

Thanks and best regards,

Lee. :-)

[Piru]

Uhm. Having your own domain doesn't require a nameserver.

If you do really want to (must?) run a nameserver, that system must stay available, so linux is the obvious choice.

The last platform you'd want to run nameserver on is amiga, even windows make more sense.

[impactor]

Hi Piru,

I should have said that my eventual aim is to set up my own webserver, but initially I want my own nameservers.

Thanks for the reply.
Lee.

[Piru]

webserver definitely does not require nameserver(s).

[impactor]

Hi Piru,

I know - but I want world domination  :-D

Lee.  :-)

[Piru]

Well, in that case look into aminet, search for named and bind.

[persia]

You don't really need your own namesevers, just use a free DNS service.  Frankly using an Amiga as a name server is silly.   But if you are really want to have your own name server use a cast off pc box with Linux.

Are you sure you know what a name server does?

Do you have a fixed IP that's available 24/7?

[nOw2]

Bind is the best choice. A quite old version is on Aminet:
http://aminet.net/package/comm/tcp/bind-4.9.2

Certainly worth learning how bind works; name servers are absolutely fundamental to Internet networking. That does mean, as Piru says, that they need to be absolutely stable for real sites - not that it'll make any difference for something you're just playing with.

[impactor]

Hi,

Thanks to you all for the help.

I am learning how name servers work, and really am just playing about at the moment, you could say I am at the experimental stage  :-)
Yes I have access to some static IP addresses, so this is not a problem.
I have just checked Aminet and found some great info, I think I will install BIND 4.9 and see how I get on, however, I am aware there are some security issues with this version, so I think I'll see how things develop.

Thanks again,

Lee.
 

[AMC258]

I don't think running a nameserver on an Amiga is stupid if you have one you don't do anything else with.  But, it would make more sense to me to buy a $10 Sparcstation and use that.  Solaris runs forever if you don't mess with it, Sparcstations don't use a lot of power, they're quiet, small, and relatively fast.
I have an Axil (Sparcstation 20 clone) nameserver on my domain.

Here's a good reason to have your own nameserver:  It's LIGHTNING fast.  You wouldn't believe how much faster web serfing is when you have your own private active nameserver instead of using the same one 400 other cable subscribers are using.

[Trev]

@AMC258

Unless you're ignoring reponse TTLs (typically 1 hour) and caching responses indefinitely, a local name server shouldn't be any faster than the caching forwarders provided by most home routers or your operating system, if you leave your system running. DNS is such a lightweight service that I can't imagine the average consumer ISP's name servers being overloaded.

@impactor

If you're serious about learning the ins and outs of DNS, you'll want to run a more recent version of BIND. If you're serious about using your Amiga hardware for the task, take a look at NetBSD: http://www.netbsd.org/ports/amiga/. You'll have fun experimenting on Amiga OS, but it just wasn't designed for what you're asking it to do.

For small, privately-owned domains, it's best to just use a third-party service like ZoneEdit.com. Regardless of your choice, have fun!

Trev

[Piru]

@AMC258

Here's a good reason to have your own nameserver: It's LIGHTNING fast. You wouldn't believe how much faster web serfing is when you have your own private active nameserver instead of using the same one 400 other cable subscribers are using.

Running full nameserver just for caching is a bit silly. The TCP/IP stack already provides built-in cache, and if that's not enough there are way better dedicated caching daemons, for example pdnsd.

There's also OpenDNS which pretty much is the 2nd fastest option after your ISP's local nameservers (which typically are the fastest anyway).

[AMC258]

The TCP/IP stack is not running long enough to provide an adequate cache, especially based on your assumption that an Amiga doesn't stay booted long enough to viably host a nameserver.

There are about two dozen users using my nameserver.  I don't honestly know how many Time Warner Business Class customers I share a nameserver with, or what else their server does, but I have actually measured the difference between using their server and mein, and mine is on average about four times faster.  Granted, that was five years ago, but I doubt it's changed much.
And, mine never goes down.  Theirs does occasionally.

[impactor]

Thanks you guys for your replies, I am picking up some great information.

@ AMC258

I am gonna check out the Sparc option, already found some on eBay - v. cheap. Although I don't know anything at all about Sun stuff!!!  Do you know what version of Sun OS / Solaris I would need to run BIND 8.x?  Thanks.  

@ Trev

Do you know if NetBSD/amiga runs BIND 8.x?  Thanks.

[AMC258]

Bind 8.4.6 and Bind 9.4.2 are available as precompiled packages for Solaris 8, 9, and 10.

I run Solaris 9(SunOS 5.9).  I used to run Solaris 7.  I wouldn't miss much going back to 7 if I had to.  9 and 10 can be had for free from Sun.  I haven't bothered with 10 just because I didn't see the point in migrating all my Sparc's, and I'm sure you lose more disk space with 10.

Sun hardware is top notch.  (We have C= to thank for that!)

Solaris is a whole different animalix if you're used to Linux, but I really do prefer Solaris.  The only *real* difference is the amount of precompiled/preconfigured software.  There is far more for Linux, but it's nice to just go to www.sunfreeware.com and install a package, and that's it.
Keep in mind you can run Linux on Sparc too.