Talk:Comparison of DNS server software

message: Disclaimer: I started this article, but I pretty much have no domain knowledge here (so to speak), so if, e.g., the Features table is ridiculous because all DNS servers do authoritative mode, I won't object to it getting totally overhauled.  —Fleminra 07:40, 2 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I think the article is a good start.  Doing this article right is a one-week research project, but I know the basics for the freely available DNS servers from the top of my head.  Samboy 07:47, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

message: ATM the article is a List of DNS server software rather then a Comparison of DNS server software. The latter would provide extensive tables to really compare the products. ScotXW (talk) 17:49, 23 October 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  List or comparison 

message: Instead of a revert war over djbdns and “open source,” how about just being unambiguous about what the article’s table means by “open source” (e.g. using  and ).  Or maybe there should be two columns: “license is OSI-approved” and “source code is freely available.”  —Fleminra 02:38, 23 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Open source

message: This article lacks encyclopedic context; it needs some text to explain why it is here and the importance of the information it provides.  Many of the entries are missing significant information, and the choice of attributes compared seems arbitrary, especially considering that one of the headers is a red-link.  —donhalcon╤ 21:21, 7 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: FYI, WP:POINT (see Special:Contributions/Donhalcon). —Fleminra 23:30, 7 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Cleanup needed

message: I'm almost certain BIND can be run on Windows using cygwin. Can someone else confirm this for me before I do an edit?
There is even a native BIND9 port. http://www.isc.org/index.pl?/sw/bind/view/?release=9.4.2  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.97.7.90 (talk) 15:09, 8 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  BIND works on Windows 

message: I'm the PowerDNS author and I just edited this page, I know this is frowned upon, but I fixed two mistakes. 
Ahu 20:38, 19 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Author update 

message: Windows 2003 DNS server does NOT support DNSSEC specified by RFC4033, RFC4034 and RFC4035(published in 2005).
It partially implemented the DNSSEC specification in RFC2535 that is now obsoleted by RFC4033, RFC4034 and RFC4035.
So, at this time, it would be correct to say that Microsoft DNS does not support DNSSEC any more.
It seems that Microsoft DNS cannot recognize DS RR, RRSIG RR, DNSKEY RR and NSEC RR, instead it can handle SIG RR, KEY RR and NXT RR(specified in RFC2535).
If above description has no problem, the contents of the table concerning DNSSEC support should be fixed, I think. --Ngtao 12:46, 13 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Problem of DNSSEC support on Windows 2003 DNS 

message: Maybe the new "interface" column should be "management interface"?  Just because the most heavily used interface of all of these servers is the interface that listens on port 53 and speaks DNS protocol.  Or maybe I'm being pedantic.  —Fleminra 20:39, 7 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  new "interface" column 

message: There are windows binaries available on the BIND website, suggesting that it does work with windows!
From the Bind Website download page: 
  A binary kit for Windows NT 4.0 and Windows 2000 is at
  http://ftp.isc.org/isc/bind/contrib/ntbind-9.3.2/BIND9.3.2.zip
  http://ftp.isc.org/isc/bind/contrib/ntbind-9.3.2/BIND9.3.2.debug.zip
--Rikjeremy 22:54, 22 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  BIND on Windows 

message: Regarding the recent Adonis-boosting changes: I think these new columns need to be qualified.  The implication that Adonis is the only DNS server software that does error checking of any kind is pretty dubious. —Fleminra 23:12, 21 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The high-avability feature is also, IMHO, pretty dubious.  Basically, DNS has high-avability built-in, so IMHO a DNS server doesn't need it. 68.107.75.220 19:56, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Adonis updates

message: What exactly does this column mean?  It sounds like marketing garbage that does not belong on Wikipedia. 71.96.189.16 02:46, 22 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Basically, a marketing department for a commercial DNS server added it to help promote their DNS server on this page.  I have removed it. 68.107.75.220 19:50, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  High availability built-in 

message: * BIND is included in most if not all Linux distros, shouldn't it be in the included column for Linux?
::Yes, with a footnote explaining that it is a package for the major Linux distros (RedHat/CentOS, Ubuntu, SuSE, etc.) and may or may not be a part of a given non-mainstream distribution. Samboy 18:31, 6 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: For the three open source, currently supported DNS servers: PowerDNS has GeoIP support; MaraDNS and BIND do not.  For the uninformed, GeoIP is the ability to give a different DNS reply based on the location one is querying a DNS server from. Samboy 18:31, 6 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: BIND 9.10 now includes GeoIP. Cba.isc (talk) 04:02, 5 August 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Misc 

message: OK, I just did some article cleanup:
* I removed three DNS appliances that use BIND as the resolver.  This is a comparison of DNS software, not the marketing department for companies that add a web interface to BIND.
* I removed MacDNS and Dents; both of these projects are dead, have been dead for years, and have no hope of ever coming back to life again.  Dents, in particular, was not a usable DNS server when it died eight years ago.
* I removed a red link to Comparison of DNS resolver software, as per Wikipedia:Red link guidelines.  If you are going to write this article, go ahead and add this link again.
Samboy 19:04, 6 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Article cleanup 

message: The open source column uses green/red colored backgrounds for yes/no. I feel that this creates an inherent bias against closed-source products simply by the human reaction and normal use of those colors. I'm removing the colored background for that column only. --mcpusc 02:34, 12 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  inherent bias in open source column 

message: What is Open Source?  There are a lot of people who argue it just means "The Source code is available", and doesn't have to be OSI compliant.  See this recent LWN article and this Slashdot flame-fest for the point of view of people who claim "Oh, 'Open Source' just means the source code is available".  Now, can anyone find a pre-OSI use of the term "Open Source" to indicate the source code of code was available, and how it was used.  Just go over to groups.google.com and find a real use of "Open Source" in 1996 or before.  
Just some food for thought.  And, yes, I feel "Open Source" means, simply, OSI-compliant, but I have gotten in to an edit war over a DJB advocate about whether we could call DjbDNS "Open Source" here, even though djbdns is not OSI-compliant.  Samboy 05:31, 8 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: OK, looking at the Slashdot flame fest, I found a reference to a 1996 use of the term "Open Source" Samboy 05:57, 8 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  What is Open Source? 

message: dnsmasq can provide DHCP services and then serve DNS requests about the clients under it's DHCP control.   I *believe* the Microsoft product does this too, but I have no verification of that.  
TonyAiuto 19:55, 23 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: No, the Microsoft DHCP server doesn't provide integration with the DNS server. A client may try to update its dns entry with the IP address it received from a DHCP server, but this isn't integration at all RichardLetts (talk) 00:09, 24 March 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Should there be a column for DHCP integration? 

message: This is a subjective term that extraordinarily complicates the table. If this page is to stay in the WP, the "Open Source" column needs to change to "freely available source" or some other neutral term. Not even Free Software advocates agree on the meaning or implications of "open source".
I'll wait for feedback for a few days, and then I'm going to go make this change.
--- tqbf 19:13, 20 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Lose "Open Source" 

message: Two reasons:
# It's not the most important set of comparison axes (Wikipedia is not a buyer's guide; we have to assume readers are coming to this article to learn more about DNS through the lense of the characteristics of different software).
# It starts to resolve a structural problem with the article, that being: we need to introduce the concept of "authority" and "recursive" servers before we can even introduce the software, because otherwise the article is tossing around terms like "authoritative" and "recursive" before defining them. 
--- tqbf 17:53, 21 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Moved Packaging To Bottom 

message: There is no standard "DNS Views" feature mentioned in any RFCs or other standard documents.
This column probably originates from the proprietary "Views" feature in BIND.
I think this column should be removed because different DNS servers have different features similar to BIND Views - but not exactly the same - and therefore this column is now used for marketing jargon foot notes about how each product does this better.
Comments please.
--Dns9900 (talk) 20:15, 21 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm unclear on this too, but assume it means something along the lines of "split view" DNS, which actually is a very important (abstract) feature --- it means you can use a single server to host both your internal (secret) names and your external (published) names. --- tqbf 20:25, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

text: I can't back this up, but I'm guessing that's not really true. Sam follows this article: can you do split-view DNS with MaraDNS? Can you really do it with something like SimpleDNS? --- tqbf 20:40, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

text: You can do it when you run two processes of DNS Server whatever flavour and then use NAT/firewalling to direct network a to process a and network b and the rest to process b --User:ZaphodB ZaphodB Fri Feb  8 16:14:21 CET 2008  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.97.7.90 (talk) 15:14, 8 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Remove "DNS Views Support" from Feature Matrix 

message: I have to vent here for a sec: it makes me feel like a bit of a jackass to have wasted Alistair's time bickering about keeping spam entries by siding with the "keep" votes here and lawyering about WP:NNC when it turns out most of these products aren't even themselves implementations of DNS, but rather repackaged versions of BIND.
It strikes me that in all the time spent bickering about this article, one of the proponents of, say, "IPControl", could have taken the time to read the IPControl data sheets and the 1 magazine review the product had, wherein it's disclosed that the DNS Server in the IPControl product is simply BIND. The same goes for IPMDNS --- it would be hugely notable if there was a major commercial DNSSEC+TSIG server in the gene pool, and I'd want it included here as well. But there isn't; this product is simply BIND on a Linux appliance. And "Nixu SNS"? Come on! This is a commercial Linux distribution, not a name server.
Also, it seems disingenuous to argue in favor of entries that you can't be bothered to take the time to complete. So, for instance, it turns out that DNSMASQ isn't a nameserver, but rather a forwarding proxy. And DNRD as well, though you wouldn't know from its entry in the article, which none of the DNRD proponents took the time to fill out. Just as well, it doesn't belong here.
--- tqbf 18:08, 2 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Removed entries 

message: Just out of curiosity, does anyone know why LOC record support is noted, while other more important/common record types, such as SRV, NAPTR, TXT, SPF (the new type 99 records), etc. are not?   I am guessing they all support things like A, NS, MX, SOA, PTR, etc. Wrs1864  —Preceding comment was added at 04:18, 3 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Because someone decided it was an important basis for comparison? Someone is clearly wrong, because pretty much all of the servers can claim to support LOC. --- tqbf 04:53, 3 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  RR type support 

message: BIND9 and BIND4, both notable, popular DNS servers, are profoundly different servers. BIND8 and BIND9 have substantially different codebases. I wouldn't want to break them into 3 servers, but the rewrite is relevant to the comparison.
--- tqbf 01:18, 16 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: i don't disagree, but the specifics are relevant to the BIND article, rather than this one. so long as this one notes which version is being used as the basis for comparison, older versions (for any software, for the most part) aren't terribly relevant. BIND 4 and 8 are deprecated, so if someone were to go to the BIND website on the basis of this or the BIND article, they'd be directed to the BIND 9 download. seems implicit to me in that regard. if this article were to include BIND 4 and 8 for comparison, then the differences would be notable. Anastrophe (talk) 01:22, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

text: The article stated there were "four different versions" of Bind, being Bind4, Bind8, Bind9.  I've done the math and changed that to 3.  For that matter, is anyone still running Bind4?  I have not personally seen it in use in over 10 years, even though it may exist as a code base for some proprietary or deeply firewalled products.  Fehrgo (talk) 11:27, 15 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: i recall seeing assorted dns server surveys over the years, and there still is a base out there of hosts running BIND 4. the implications of that are horrible of course, but it's the reality. BIND 4 code is no longer available on the ISC website however, so i do wonder whether its useful to include it in a comparison list such as this, since nobody is able to perform a new deployment of it. it's more a historical artifact rather than DNS server software one might consider using. Anastrophe (talk) 17:14, 15 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  BIND9 Rewrite 

message: The article that we appear to be using to define "proprietary" licenses has a great big "This article does not cite any references or sources." tag at the top. Not entirely credible. Our article on Proprietary software which most of the software comparison articles pointed to states at the top "Proprietary software, coined by the free software community...". Comparing software by using the terms produced by one side of an argument is something we should be avoiding. AlistairMcMillan (talk) 01:49, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: okay, but then what shall the licenses be called? or should the column be changed, perhaps to "Cost", which would give a clearer representation. most people are interested in software that's free as in beer. the politics of free as in liberty is, regardless of what many may counter, not that important to the majority of software end-users. Anastrophe (talk) 05:28, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: There already is a column called Cost. These pieces of software must be released under some license. Is "EULA" the correct equivalent for GPL/BSD/etc? AlistairMcMillan (talk) 19:30, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Proprietary license 

message: Isn't Dynamic DNS (RFC 2136, RFC 3007) a feature worth it's own column in the comparison table? Or is that too hairy and full of "yes, but..." ? Rootmoose (talk) 12:56, 29 April 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Dynamic (authoritative) DNS? 

message: TreeWalk has been around and still was getting recommendations from security advisors.  I'm surprised it's not here.  97.85.185.160 (talk) 03:47, 31 May 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  TreeWalk 

message: ISC did not "create" BIND as indicated in the Packaging table, Computer Systems Research Group did.  To fix, I can see some options:  Change entry to CSRG; change header to Maintainer (but not sure if that "breaks" any other entry); Change entry to CSRG/ISC; change to specify BIND9.  --J Clear (talk) 16:19, 14 August 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Creator 

message: Just a quick note that I’ve updated the comparison table, fixing (with a ref) the mistake claiming that pdnsd supports DNSSEC (while pdnsd now supports the record types used in dnssec, pdnsd doesn’t support DNSSEC yet; I added a reference for this), and have added pdnsd to the other two tables (pdnsd has been recently updated, is free [GPL], and IMHO deserves a row in all three tables) Samboy (talk) 18:34, 29 March 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  pdnsd 

message: I find the tables to be slightly difficult to read, with no licensing and other essential information such as programming language, latest version number, and initial release date. See Comparison of Internet Relay Chat daemons for a better comparison. 80.221.159.67 (talk) 02:52, 7 September 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Lack of [[Template:Proprietary]] / [[Template:Free]] and other essential information 

message: The feature matrix should include DNS64 support status. I think it would be very useful. Scineram (talk) 19:33, 22 February 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  DNS64 

message: The feature matrix should include EDNS0 support status. I think it would be very useful. grzchr15 (talk) 17:50, 21 March 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: * Do you know which of the DNS servers already support EDNS0? i.e. do enough already support it to add a column to the matrix? - Dyork (talk) 00:30, 22 March 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Extension Mechanisms for DNS (EDNS0) 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: Could you please explain this revert? You rollbacked the edit saying that it was an unexplained content removal, but I stated in my edit summary that it sources to GitHub, which is WP:USERGENERATED. There are 1000s of such open-sourced DNS servers on GitHub and not every single one of them are notable enough to be mentioned in Wikipedia. The Antediluvian (talk) 19:55, 5 April 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: After I examined what this specific software is and the developer of this software, I undid my revert. I performed the revert in the first place because I recognized the first part of the name of the application. So Technitium is a company that is popularly known for its MAC spoofing application (called Technitium MAC Address Changer, or TMAC). TMAC is mentioned on PCWorld [here] and Digital Trends [here]. TMAC is more than 10 years old and is not posted on GitHub. I thought its DNS server was popular, but I stood corrected. I undid my revert after I found out that both Technitium and its DNS server were not very notable. — B. L. I. R. 00:31, 6 April 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: After some searching I found it mentioned on ZDNet [here], on a ResearchGate paper [here], and also has several CVEs listed for it. 122.177.106.38 (talk) 08:36, 24 May 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Rollback regarding Technitium DNS Server