On Mon, 5 Oct 2009, nate wrote:

ML wrote:

...

HI All,

How fast does a a small DNS Server need to be? I will have about 10 servers and a few workstations. I have a few older Compaq PIII boxes with 1gb RAM each or I have faster P4 boxes.

Your watch is probably sufficient.

Or your phone...

It wasn't THAT long ago that "monster" servers ran 85MHz SPARC 4d's. (We had a cool 12-proc unit that auto-failed one cpu so I could say with a straight face that I administered the only 11-processor web server I knew...)

Seriously, you'd have to look long and hard to find a computer that didn't have the horsepower to host DNS, DHCP, NTP and static HTTP services.

The bigger issue is ensuring that an older computer has enough disk space to house a modern distro and enough RAM to run modern kernels -- and even then you can tighten things up if you're willing to work with a speciality distro.

Robert Heller wrote:

Right. You'll *have* to get at least a socket-7 motherboard with a K6 processor and DIMM RAM sockets and PCI bus, if only because getting old-school SIMMs is hard these days. And getting a distro with install kernels (much less stock kernels) for less than a 586 is getting hard, unless you opt for something like Slackware or Linux From Scratch. In practice any still working minimually i686 system with a reasonable amount of RAM (for just a DNS server, 256meg RAM and a 20-40 GIG IDE disk, would probably even be enough to install, say, CentOS). I recently installed CentOS 5.2 on a old Dell box (PII or PIII vintage) with an 18gig disk. No X11. Just DNS, DHCPD, PPPD, Samba, CUPS, and little else. This little box is just being used as a dialup 'router'. It is jacked into a wireless 'router', but the wireless router is just being used as an accesspoint and Ethernet switch (this is a home setup -- broadband is not presently available, only dialup internet).

I replaced a modern retail firewall/router with a 500 Mhz Celeron with 512K RAM (Intel 810e motherboard) and a PCI dual port ethernet card of because the 'modern' POS turnkey couldn't handle 100 mbits/second through the WAN interface. The 500Mhz celeron with CentOS5 handled that plus DNS and DHCP without ever cracking 1% CPU usage.

...

I replaced a modern retail firewall/router with a 500 Mhz Celeron with 512K RAM (Intel 810e motherboard) and a PCI dual port ethernet card of because the 'modern' POS turnkey couldn't handle 100 mbits/second through the WAN interface. The 500Mhz celeron with CentOS5 handled that plus DNS and DHCP without ever cracking 1% CPU usage.

That proves 614K should be enough for anybody.

ah *snap*!

-ML

On 10/5/09, Robert Heller heller@deepsoft.com wrote:

At Mon, 5 Oct 2009 15:34:38 -0700 (PDT) CentOS mailing list centos@centos.org wrote:

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How fast does a a small DNS Server need to be? I will have about 10 servers and a few workstations. I have a few older Compaq PIII boxes with 1gb RAM each or I have faster P4 boxes.

<snip>

little else. This little box is just being used as a dialup 'router'. It is jacked into a wireless 'router', but the wireless router is just being used as an accesspoint and Ethernet switch (this is a home setup -- broadband is not presently available, only dialup internet).

Do any of the cell phone operators in your area use the GSM technology? If so, they may offer HSDPA Internet service too. I would like to ditch our ADSL (the only wired broadband available in our rural subdivision at this time), to get rid of the infrastructure problems and prefer WiMAX, which isn't available where we live (Cali was one of the first cities to have WiMAX). Netgear makes an HSDPA to Ethernet modem, but I don't think they sell them in the USA or down here. If you can get HSDPA, that would probably be a huge speed increase for your home network. The HSDPA speed at our house, at this time, is slower than our ADSL, but if I had one of those Netgear modems, we'd make the switch. The 3 cell phone operators in Colombia are all using GSM now and all 3 offer HSDPA Internet access, but their normal method is a USB device that only runs on Windows or a Mac, which is only good for one box and not for a Linux box. The Netgear HSDPA to Ethernet modem would eliminate that problem. Possibly the CDMA cell phone operators in your area also offer Internet access?

-----Original Message----- From: centos-bounces@centos.org [mailto:centos-bounces@centos.org] On

Behalf

Of Paul Heinlein Sent: Tuesday, October 06, 2009 12:35 AM To: CentOS mailing list Subject: Re: [CentOS] How fast?

The bigger issue is ensuring that an older computer has enough disk space to house a modern distro and enough RAM to run modern kernels -- and even then you can tighten things up if you're willing to work with a speciality distro.

I second that, nicely put!

If I may suggest Smoothwall for a firewall appliance...? This is a specialty distro, IPCop is another similar distro. Smoothwall's even got a simple static DNS built-in, just the thing for a smallish home network. Might be just what the OP is looking for?

On Mon, Oct 05, 2009 at 05:19:17PM -0700, John R Pierce wrote:

I'd consider RELIABILITY far more important than speed. key to DNS reliablity is to have an offsite backup for any authoritative DNS. my homebrew DNS network involves my home box on my DSL, my friend's home box who is in a different LATA and on a different ISP, and a proper server colocated in a data center, in yet a different city on a different backbone. between these three systems, we're pretty damn robust for something completely free.

This is obviously offtopic, but I use zoneedit.com for secondary DNS, hosting the primary for my domain at my home (behind a DSL connection). I have fairly low bandwidth requirements for DNS lookups, so my domain has always been free of charge. I've never had any problems with their service. If you use them as slaves, you can have pretty much any configuration (and complete control) you want for your zone.

--keith