multi-master with mysql backend

Gordon A. Lang glang at goalex.com
Mon Feb 14 18:18:20 UTC 2011


FWIW, I feel compelled to chime in -- for those who haven't already begun
to filter out this thread.....

We have many thousands of records (internally) in hundreds of zones,
mostly dynamic.

We have 8 DNS servers providing authoritative and recursive service to
thousands of internal clients.

All DNS servers are slaves to a single, semi-hidden master.

The master's "service addresses" is statically host routed to the servers
currently providing the master DNS service, with the service addresses
being assigned to loopback interface on the server.

If the active master dies, then I run a simple script on another working
DNS server to promote it to master, and I change a static host route in
the layer-3 switches to direct zone transfer and DDNS traffic to the new
server.  I can restore the master DNS functionality on any other DNS
server within seconds.

The weakness of this system is that I don't trust an automatic failover,
so zone transfers and new DDNS requests have to wait until someone on my
team is notified of the problem, and they log in, and implement the flip.

We do have a mysql-based management system, but only for the non-dynamic
zones, and the zone files are pushed out to the active master using scp
and rndc.  I would never install the database on an actual DNS server --
for many, many reasons.

Sorry if I come across as harsh, but the thought of installing a database
system on every DNS server that might need to become master seems
extremely insane.

Ah.  There, I feel much better now having said that.

--
Gordon A. Lang  /  313-819-7978
----- Original Message ----- 
From: Mike Mitchell
To: fddi
Cc: bind-users at lists.isc.org
Sent: Monday, February 14, 2011 10:52 AM
Subject: RE: multi-master with mysql backend


I'd keep two copies of the BIND config, one that has all the zones as 
"master", and one that has all the zones as "slave".  When the master dies, 
run a little script on a slave that freezes the zones, edits the SOA to make 
that server the MNAME and increment the serial, then thaws the zone. Swap 
out the config with the "master" config, and now you have a new master.

Before the broken master comes back online, swap out its config with the 
"slave" config.

No need for rsync or mysql, BIND replication does all the work for you. 
Just be sure the updates go to the server listed in the MNAME field of the 
SOA.

Mike Mitchell





From: bind-users-bounces+mike.mitchell=sas.com at lists.isc.org 
[bind-users-bounces+mike.mitchell=sas.com at lists.isc.org] on behalf of Bill 
Larson [wllarso.dns at gmail.com]
Sent: Monday, February 14, 2011 10:39 AM
To: fddi
Cc: bind-users at lists.isc.org
Subject: Re: multi-master with mysql backend


On Feb 13, 2011, at 9:06 AM, fddi wrote:


I do not know why you really don't liket this mysql solution.
OK I am talking of a DNS for HA purposes for grid computing services for 
exampe, so DNS
resolution must be always working at any cost.
The David solution can be OK, but I want to be sure not to have issues with 
serial numbers on the two servers
and the mysql solution looks safer to me. You do not have to rsync anything, 
just have mysql properly configured.



This list is read by many people with extreme experience with DNS and DNS 
operations.  Using the information that you have provided, many solutions 
have been provided to meet the requirements that you have stated.  I would 
suggest that you at least consider this other solutions and not be as 
adamant about using your proposed MySQL solution.


You state that you have a "HA" requirement.  Please understand that this is 
not an uncommon requirement for a DNS operation.  In fact, almost all DNS 
operations have this same requirement.  Just imagine if the root servers did 
not have a require for "high availability".  The same goes for the "com", 
"net", "org" servers ("it" also).  This is not an unusual requirement and a 
standard BIND DNS server provides this very well.


Now, I would also suggest that a MySQL DNS server may not be the best 
solution for a critical DNS operation.  Please take a look at the benchmark 
work done comparing BIND using various backend systems, including MySQL. 
This can be found at http://bind-dlz.sourceforge.net/perf_tests.html, which 
is part of the work that the people that developed DLZ for BIND.  The 
standard BIND server could provide 16,000 queries per second.  The same BIND 
server using a MySQL backend could handle less than 700 qps.


BIND DLZ using MySQL is NOT what I would consider to be a high performance 
solution for a DNS operation.  Now, granted, these results were not using a 
"current" version of BIND, nor was this being run on any "high power" 
hardware.  Performance of BIND DLZ using a MySQL backend may have easily 
been improved, but so has the performance of the base system too.  A 20 to 1 
performance advantage for a straight BIND solution will be hard to overcome.


So, performance isn't something that a MySQL backend provides to a DNS 
operation and high availability is something that all DNS server do provide, 
so your real requirement must be something else, such as being able to 
update multiple servers at the same time.  But Doug Barton has identified 
that using "nsupdate" to update both (all) servers also provides a solution 
to meet this requirement.


So, your "the mysql solution looks safer to me", may be your viewpoint which 
is not universally agreed upon.  You also have stated "just have mysql 
properly configured".  This statement is not unique to MySQL but to BIND 
also.  BIND also needs to be properly configured, no different than with 
MySQL - nothing unique here.


Now, my single belief for any DNS operation is to follow the KISS principle, 
"keep it simple, stupid".  A less complex system will be more reliable than 
a more complex system, because of having less potential points of failure. 
This reliability is the single most important requirement for a DNS 
operation.  A DNS operation that requires running both BIND and MySQL will 
be inherently less reliable than one running just BIND.


The complexity of a MySQL BIND server makes for a less reliable system than 
one just using BIND.  The performance of a MySQL based BIND server is much 
less than a standard BIND server.  Managing DNS information using dynamic 
DNS provides a simple solution to updating the zone information.  So, what 
is the actual advantage of using a MySQL backend to BIND?  I'm not convinced 
that there is any advantage and I am sure that there are many downsides to 
using this.


Using MySQL for a backend to BIND is a fairly commonly proposed solution but 
it's actual implementation is not followed up on.  I looked at using MySQL, 
but the performance limitations were an absolute deal killer.  I set up a 
simple BIND/MySQL system and benchmarked it and duplicated the performance 
trends from the BIND-DLZ developers.  Maybe this has been improved, but 
these results have not be published so we don't know about it.


If you do implement your MySQL solution, please, please, please, keep us 
informed about how it works for you.  We would like to know more and are 
always willing to look at new technologies but aren't too accepting of hand 
waving.


Bill Larson


Riccardo

On 2/12/11 11:33 PM, Doug Barton wrote:

On 02/11/2011 01:51 PM, fddi wrote:

I understand you, but the advantage of having mysql backend is that

if one of the two servers dies, the other keeps running with up to

date informations, and can also be updated wit new informations. When

the  other server comes up again it will automatically sync itself

using mysql replica mechanism. if I use file backend I have to

manually sync it, and how to keep tracks of modifications ?



for this I choose mysql backend



Two questions, how often do you anticipate one of the masters failing, and 
how much data are you talking about? Generally the number of times a server 
fails is going to be pretty small, if it's not, you've got bigger problems.



If you're not talking about a huge amount of data here (and from what you've 
described in previous posts, you're not) then you are fairly dramatically 
over-architecting your solution here. Personally I think David had a great 
idea in regards to using nsupdate to update both masters at the same time. 
If you really think that one of them is going to fail often enough to 
justify an automated solution than scripting something that utilizes rsync 
shouldn't be too hard.





hth,



Doug




_______________________________________________
bind-users mailing list
bind-users at lists.isc.org
https://lists.isc.org/mailman/listinfo/bind-users






_______________________________________________
bind-users mailing list
bind-users at lists.isc.org
https://lists.isc.org/mailman/listinfo/bind-users 




More information about the bind-users mailing list