AIX & BIND versus Microsoft DNS

[Danny Mayer]

At 06:35 PM 8/27/01, Simon Waters wrote:

>Rhonda Gaines wrote:
> > 
> > I want to know what the pros/cons are of running DNS on Unix (not
> > necessarily AIX but that's the platform it is on right now) versus
> > Microsoft DNS.
>
>Microsoft DNS needed to be clarified.
>
>I'm reasonably happy when using Windows NT DNS with service pack
>4 or higher.
>
>I'm still rather skeptical of Windows 2000 DNS, which is a
>completely different beast, and whilst a lot more sophisticated
>(read probably more bugs than the previous) has only got to
>service pack 2.
>
>The Windows NT DNS server is horrible to diagnose as the event
>log messages are totally useless, and Microsoft's solution is to
>ship you a replacement binary which logs more information than
>the original binary.
>
>The Windows NT DNS does have a GUI management tool, which whilst
>I moan about it's ability to crash, is an improvement of the GUI
>management of BIND out of the box.
>
>My preference is to run UNIX/Linux and BIND over NT DNS, but
>since when you use WINS you don't have much choice, I've used
>and recommended both. 
>
>My preference partly driven by how much easier it is to secure,
>and maintain a UNIX server. I know from experience it is
>possible to build and run NT with high availability, but even
>the need for several reboots just to install a copy of Microsoft
>DNS server is off putting in some operational environments.

Of course if you use the port of BIND 8 to NT, there's no need to reboot and,
in fact, I recommend not rebooting! :-) I haven't rebooted any of my systems
in months (except for power outages) and I never have a reason to.  Most
of the time these reboots are due to bad installation procedures rather than
any pressing needs to do so.

         Danny