Running BIND on MacOS X ?

[Bill Larson]

On Nov 5, 2004, at 3:46 AM, Frank Bonnet wrote:

> I am thinking to replace my old HP-UX secondary name server
> by a brand new Apple G5 biproc machine running MacOS X.
>
> I would be glad to receive some feedback from sysadmins
> running BIND on such beast.

There has recently been some discussion on this list, and the Apple 
MacOS X Server list too, about DNS issues with MacOS X.  There appears 
to be any issue with one of the recent security updates, or maybe MacOS 
X 10.3.5 in general.  This has something to do with IPv6 queries.

Until there is a resolution to this, I would be hesitant to move a DNS 
server to MacOS X.  As was said by other responders, don't expect the 
Apple supplied GUI to be able to help you much.  Stick to editing the 
configuration files manually.

DNS services don't require much CPU power.  Stick to a single CPU 
system, a dual processor box won't make things better.  If you think 
you need a dual CPU system because you are also running a web or mail 
server on it - think again.  Have a dedicated system to just run your 
DNS services.  Don't try and piggy back other services on a DNS server. 
  You don't want to loose your DNS service because your mail system, or 
web server, hung your machine.  You might want to consider a cheap 
Intel box running FreeBSD as an alternative to a MacOS X system.  The 
differences is cost should be significant.

After saying this, don't get me wrong - I like and use Macs.  They are 
great systems, the Mac windowing system is excellent, and as someone 
said before "MacOS X is what Unix should be like".  The MacOS X Server 
product is a workhorse providing file sharing, web services, MySQL, 
etc.  But, DNS servers don't need these capabilities and there are more 
cost effective solutions.  And, there currently are issues about MacOS 
X and DNS.  So, consider a different platform, or at least wait until 
these DNS issues are resolved.

Bill Larson