Topic: DNS cache-only server?

[Keith Winston]

I know E-smith does not have a full DNS implementation, but can it server as a caching-only DNS server?

My ISP is currently publishing my domain and mail records, but I'd like to run a caching DNS server on my network to improve performance.

All help appreciated!

[Charlie Brady]

Keith Winston wrote:

> I'd like to run a caching DNS server on my network to improve
> performance.

Good. That's what you have in the standard e-smith server and gateway,  right out of the box!

Charlie

[Keith Winston]

Charlie,

Thank you greatly for confirming it.  One note for other people reading this:  I installed my test e-smith server in "server only" mode since I do not need the firewall/gateway functions.  It only has 1 NIC.  Anyway, I poked around a bit and found that the DNS service (named) was not being started automatically, maybe because of my "server only" install mode.  E-smith defaults to run level 7 and there was no start up script for named.  However, the script "/etc/rc.d/init.d/named" was available and I started the service using that script.  I plan to put the command in my rc.local so it starts every time the server is booted.  Now, e-smith is happily doing DNS lookups for my client PCs!!  E-smith is just a great piece of software.

[Fran Boon]

Yes, I'd noticed this too - I'd class this as a bug..but perhaps it's by design?
Is this planned to be fixed in the new e-smith-named under development?

FYI - E-Smith in Server/Gateway mode runs Named from /etc/inittab, not from /etc/rc.d/rc.local.
I'm not sure why - to respawn in case it dies?