small caching DNS proxy for dialup connections

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Newsgroups: fa.netbsd.help
Date: 2003-04-25 16:44:13 PST

I'm looking for a small caching DNS proxy suitable for dialup connections running on NetBSD 1.6 for i386. That means that the proxy may forward requests to the ISP's nameserver when the connection is up, but shall use the cache when the connection is down.

One idea was to run named, generate a new named.conf and send SIGHUP to named to force rereading of the configuration file. But I find named oversized for my single PC and difficult to configure.

Another idea was to use dnrd. The problem is, that I didn't succeed in compiling the sources, because they seem to use some missing Linux semaphore stuff. In addition I've read that dnrd's code isn't clean concerning buffer overflows.

Similiar with pdnsd. I think that would be my favorite caching DNS server, but compilation fails because of missing pthread stuff. The makefile wants to call gcc with a special phread option and phread.h. I've found a package mit-pthreads-1.60b6 but I'm not sure how to proceed. pdnsd's configure script ignores the installed phread headers, libraries and the gcc variant because all that isn't in the standard directories. Before I try to rewrite the makefile manually, I'd rather like to ask if I'm still on the track.

Maybe sombody knows an easy to use solution? Just another idea: if I don't succeed in compiling, can I use a Linux binary instead? I dispose also of Debian GNU/Linux 3.0 (Woody), but havn't yet set up any Linux emulation. I've heard, that only Read Hat and SuSE are supported. Is that true?

I don't want to manipulate /etc/resolv.conf dynamically, because the man page tells me, that the file is only read the first time a resolver function is called. That seems to me that a dynamic modification would not be noticed by the resolver.

Thomas

small caching DNS proxy for dialup connections

> One idea was to run named, generate a new named.conf and send SIGHUP
> to named to force rereading of the configuration file. But I find
> named oversized for my single PC and difficult to configure.

http://www.mclink.it/personal/MG2508/nbsdeng/chap-dns.html#SECT-DNSCACHE

Federico's Guide explains setting up a caching name server in 263 words. What could be easier? You just have add the ability to turn recursion on and off, which looks from here like a little script to mv the right file into place and send a HUP.

That sure *seems* simpler than the other options you listed, but maybe I'm missing something?

James K. Lowden

small caching DNS proxy for dialup connections

> That sure *seems* simpler than the other options you listed, but maybe I'm
> missing something?

Ack, it's quite simple. It's just that if there were ready to use NetBSD packages for dnrd or pdnsd, it could be *more* simple. And the latter ones have a much smaller footprint than bind (I think named is bind, isn't it?). I always try to get a smaller thing for my old, single PC at home, e.g. rather leafnode than inn.

In addition ipppd from isdn4linux offers an option ms-get-dns which implements the client side of RFC1877, i.e. let accept my ISP's suggestion of dns address. Is there something comparable in i4b? Then I could dynamically generate my forwarder option for named.conf.

Thomas