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List:       maradns-list
Subject:    MaraDNS 0.9.11 is now considered stable
From:       e8mhpsznamq001 () sneakemail ! com
Date:       2002-02-15 21:48:19
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Since I have not received any bug reports about MaraDNS 0.9.11, and
since MaraDNS 0.9.11 has no problems with the stress tests in the SQA 
suite, I am no longer marking MaraDNS 0.9.11 as an "unstable" release.
It is, as far as I can tell, as stable as any other caching/recursive
release of MaraDNS.

As a result, I have made an announcment about MaraDNS 0.9.11 on Freshmeat,
and have uploaded MaraDNS 0.9.11 source files to both SourceForge and to
Ibiblio.

If there are any problems found with MaraDNS 0.9.11 which do not exist in
MaraDNS 0.9.09, speak now or forever hold your peace.

With regards to the problems people are seeing because MaraDNS is
generating so many threads, i have added the following to the "BUGS"
section of the MaraDNS manual:

       MaraDNS spwawns a new thread for every single recursive
       DNS request when the data in question is not in MaraDNSī
       cache; this makes MaraDNS an excellent stress tester for
       pthread implementations.  Many pthread implementations can
       not handle this kind of load; symptoms include high memory
       usage and termination of the MaraDNS process.

Resolving this issue would require an almost complete rewrite of 
MaraDNS' recursive code.  A rewrite of the recursive code is needed 
eventually for other reasons: 

* The code has hard-wired assumptions that DNS is only done on ipv4

* The code is not nearly as compact nor as elegent as i would like 
  it to be

* Changes and additions were made to the data structures on an 
  ad-hoc basis, since I started writing the recursive code without 
  a fully clear idea what was needed to make a usable recursive 
  nameserver

This will not happen until MaraDNS 2.0; in the meantime, I think it is
more important to add SQL support, BIND zone file support, and limited
IPV6 support.  Better TCP support will come after the rewrite; the
recursive code also assumes that all queries are done over UDP.

Of course, features will not be added until after the 1.0 release; MaraDNS 
has been under a feature freeze for about seven months now.  My current 
plan is to audit critical sections of the code which are "at the 
frontlines" in terms of security, and then make a MaraDNS 1.0 release.

The audit will consist, among other things, of more throughly documenting
how exactly the recursive DNS server works; the easier I make the code
to read, the easier it will be for me to audit it.

- Sam

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