- release 4

[packages/pdns.git] / pdns.txt

                                PowerDNS manual

   PowerDNS BV

             <pdns@powerdns.com>
           

         It is a book about a Spanish guy called Manual. You should read it.
            -- Dilbert
       

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

   Table of Contents

   1. The PowerDNS dynamic nameserver

                1.1. Function & design of PDNS

                1.2. About this document

                1.3. Release notes

                             1.3.1. Version 2.9.16

                             1.3.2. Version 2.9.15

                             1.3.3. Version 2.9.14

                             1.3.4. Version 2.9.13

                             1.3.5. Version 2.9.12

                             1.3.6. Version 2.9.11

                             1.3.7. Version 2.9.10

                             1.3.8. Version 2.9.8

                             1.3.9. Version 2.9.7

                             1.3.10. Version 2.9.6

                             1.3.11. Version 2.9.5

                             1.3.12. Version 2.9.4

                             1.3.13. Version 2.9.3a

                             1.3.14. Version 2.9.2

                             1.3.15. Version 2.9.1

                             1.3.16. Version 2.9

                             1.3.17. Version 2.8

                             1.3.18. Version 2.7 and 2.7.1

                             1.3.19. Version 2.6.1

                             1.3.20. Version 2.6

                             1.3.21. Version 2.5.1

                             1.3.22. Version 2.5

                             1.3.23. Version 2.4

                             1.3.24. Version 2.3

                             1.3.25. Version 2.2

                             1.3.26. Version 2.1

                             1.3.27. Version 2.0.1

                             1.3.28. Version 2.0

                             1.3.29. Version 2.0 Release Candidate 2

                             1.3.30. Version 2.0 Release Candidate 1

                             1.3.31. Version 1.99.12 Prerelease

                             1.3.32. Version 1.99.11 Prerelease

                             1.3.33. Version 1.99.10 Prerelease

                             1.3.34. Version 1.99.9 Early Access Prerelease

                             1.3.35. Version 1.99.8 Early Access Prerelease

                             1.3.36. Version 1.99.7 Early Access Prerelease

                             1.3.37. Version 1.99.6 Early Access Prerelease

                             1.3.38. Version 1.99.5 Early Access Prerelease

                             1.3.39. Version 1.99.4 Early Access Prerelease

                             1.3.40. Version 1.99.3 Early Access Prerelease

                             1.3.41. Version 1.99.2 Early Access Prerelease

                             1.3.42. Version 1.99.1 Early Access Prerelease

                1.4. Security

                1.5. Acknowledgements

   2. Installing on Unix

                2.1. Possible problems at this point

                2.2. Testing your install

                             2.2.1. Typical errors

                2.3. Running PDNS on unix

   3. Installing on Microsoft Windows

                3.1. Configuring PDNS on Microsoft Windows

                3.2. Running PDNS on Microsoft Windows

   4. Configure database connectivity

                4.1. Configuring MySQL

                             4.1.1. Common problems

   5. Dynamic resolution using the PipeBackend

                5.1. Deploying the PipeBackend with the BindBackend

   6. Logging & Monitoring PDNS performance

                6.1. Webserver

                6.2. Via init.d commands

                6.3. Operational logging using syslog

   7. Security settings & considerations

                7.1. Settings

                             7.1.1. Running as a less privileged identity

                             7.1.2. Jailing the process in a chroot

                7.2. Considerations

   8. Virtual hosting

   9. Performance related settings

                9.1. Packet Cache

                9.2. Query Cache

   10. Migrating to PDNS

                10.1. Zone2sql

   11. Recursion

                11.1. Details

   12. PowerDNS resolver/recursing nameserver

                12.1. pdns_recursor settings

                             12.1.1. Verisign weirdness

                12.2. Details

                12.3. Statistics

   13. Master/Slave operation & replication

                13.1. Native replication

                13.2. Slave operation

                             13.2.1. Supermaster automatic provisioning of
                             slaves

                13.3. Master operation

   14. Fancy records for seamless email and URL integration

   15. Index of all settings

   16. Index of all internal metrics

                16.1. Counters & variables

                             16.1.1. Ring buffers

   17. Supported record types and their storage

   18. HOWTO & Frequently Asked Questions

                18.1. Getting support, free and paid FAQ

                18.2. Using and Compiling PowerDNS FAQ

                18.3. Backend developer HOWTO

                18.4. About PowerDNS.COM BV, 'the company'

   A. Backends in detail

                A.1. PipeBackend

                             A.1.1. PipeBackend protocol

                A.2. MySQL backend

                             A.2.1. Configuration settings

                             A.2.2. Notes

                A.3. Random Backend

                A.4. MySQL PDNS backend

                             A.4.1. Notes

                A.5. Generic MySQL and PgSQL backends

                             A.5.1. MySQL specifics

                             A.5.2. PostgresSQL specifics

                             A.5.3. Basic functionality

                             A.5.4. Master/slave queries

                             A.5.5. Fancy records

                             A.5.6. Settings and specifying queries

                             A.5.7. Native operation

                             A.5.8. Slave operation

                             A.5.9. Superslave operation

                             A.5.10. Master operation

                A.6. Generic Oracle backend

                             A.6.1. Setting up Oracle for use with PowerDNS

                A.7. Generic SQLite backend

                             A.7.1. Compiling the SQLite backend

                             A.7.2. Setting up the database

                             A.7.3. Using the SQLite backend

                A.8. DB2 backend

                A.9. Bind zone file backend

                             A.9.1. Operation

                             A.9.2. Pdns_control commands

                             A.9.3. Performance

                             A.9.4. Master/slave configuration

                             A.9.5. Commands

                A.10. ODBC backend

                A.11. XDB Backend

                A.12. LDAP backend

   B. PDNS internals

                B.1. Controlsocket

                             B.1.1. pdns_control

                B.2. Guardian

                B.3. Modules & Backends

                B.4. How PDNS translates DNS queries into backend queries

   C. Backend writers' guide

                C.1. Simple read-only native backends

                             C.1.1. A sample minimal backend

                             C.1.2. Interface definition

                C.2. Reporting errors

                C.3. Declaring and reading configuration details

                C.4. Read/write slave-capable backends

                             C.4.1. Supermaster/Superslave capability

                C.5. Read/write master-capable backends

   D. Compiling PowerDNS

                D.1. Compiling PowerDNS on Unix

                             D.1.1. AIX

                             D.1.2. FreeBSD

                             D.1.3. Linux

                             D.1.4. MacOS X

                             D.1.5. OpenBSD

                             D.1.6. Solaris

                D.2. Compiling PowerDNS on Windows

                             D.2.1. Assumptions

                             D.2.2. Prequisites

                             D.2.3. Nullsoft Installer

                             D.2.4. Setting up the build-environment

                             D.2.5. Compilation

                             D.2.6. Miscellaneous

   E. PowerDNS license (GNU General Public License version 2)

   List of Tables

   17-1. SOA fields

   A-1. PipeBackend capabilities

   A-2. MySQL backend capabilities

   A-3. Random Backend capabilities

   A-4. MySQL backend capabilities

   A-5. Generic PgSQL and MySQL backend capabilities

   A-6. Oracle backend capabilities

   A-7. Generic SQLite backend capabilities

   A-8. DB2 backend capabilities

   A-9. Bind zone file backend capabilities

   A-10. ODBC backend capabilities

   A-11. LDAP backend capabilities

   C-1. DNSResourceRecord class

   C-2. SOAData struct

   C-3. DomainInfo struct

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

                   Chapter 1. The PowerDNS dynamic nameserver

   The PowerDNS daemon is a versatile nameserver which supports a large
   number of backends. These backends can either be plain zonefiles or be
   more dynamic in nature.

   Prime examples of backends include relational databases, but also
   loadbalancing and failover algorithms.

   The company is called PowerDNS BV, the nameserver daemon is called PDNS.

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

1.1. Function & design of PDNS

   PDNS is an authoritative only nameserver. It will answer questions about
   domains it knows about, but will not go out on the net to resolve queries
   about other domains. However, it can use a recursing backend to provide
   that functionality.

   When PDNS answers a question, it comes out of the database, and can be
   trusted as being authoritative. There is no way to pollute the cache or to
   confuse the daemon.

   PDNS has been designed to serve both the needs of small installations by
   being easy to setup, as well as for serving very large query volumes on
   large numbers of domains.

   Another prime goal is security. By the use of language features, the PDNS
   source code is very small (in the order of 10.000 lines) which makes
   auditing easy. In the same way, library features have been used to
   mitigate the risks of buffer overflows.

   Finally, PDNS is able to give a lot of statistics on its operation which
   is both helpful in determining the scalability of an installation as well
   as for spotting problems.

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

1.2. About this document

   If you are reading this document from disk, you may want to check
   http://doc.powerdns.com for updates. The PDF version is available on
   http://doc.powerdns.com/pdf, a text file is on
   http://doc.powerdns.com/txt/.

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

1.3. Release notes

   Before proceeding, it is advised to check the release notes for your PDNS
   version, as specified in the name of the distribution file.

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

  1.3.1. Version 2.9.16

   The 'it must still be Friday somewhere' release. Massive number of fixes,
   portability improvements and the new Geobackend by Mark Bergsma & friends.

   New:

     * The Geobackend which makes it possible to send different answers to
       different IP ranges. Initial documentation can be found in
       pdns/modules/geobackend/README.

     * qgen query generation tool. Nearly completely undocumented and hard to
       build too, it requires Boost. But very spiffy. Use cd pdns; make qgen
       to build it.

   Bugfixes:

     * The most reported bug ever, zone2sql required the inclusion of
       unistd.h, except on Debian unstable.

     * PowerDNS tried to listen on its control "pipe" which does not work.
       Probably harmless, but might have caused some oddities.

     * The Packet Cache did not always set its TTL immediately, causing some
       packets to be inserted, even when running with the cache disabled
       (Mark Bergsma).

     * Valgrind found some unitialized reads, causing bogus values in the
       priority field when it was not needed

     * Valgrind found a bug in MTasker where we used delete instead of
       delete[].

     * SOA serials and other parameters are unsigned. This means that very
       large SOA serial numbers would be messed up (Michel Stol, Stefano
       Straus)

     * PowerDNS left its controlsocket around after exit and reported
       confusing errors if a socket was already in use.

     * The recursor proxy did not work on big endian systems like SPARC and
       some MIPS processors (Remco Post)

     * We no longer dump core on processing LOC records on UltraSPARC (Andrew
       Mulholland supplied a testing machine)

   Improvements:

     * MySQL can now connect to a specified port again (Chris Anderton)

     * When running chroot()ed and with master or slave support active,
       PowerDNS needs to resolve domain names to find slaves. This in turn
       may require access to certain libraries. Previously, these needed to
       be available in the chroot directory but by forcing an initial lookup,
       these libraries are now loaded before the chrooting.

     * pdns_recursor was very slow after having done a larger number of
       queries because of the checks to see if a query should be throttled.
       This is now done using a set which is a lot faster than the previous
       full sequential scan.

     * The throttling code may not have throttled as much as was configured.

     * Yet another big LDAP update. The LDAP backend now loadbalances
       connections over several hosts (Norbert Sendetzky)

     * Updated b.root-servers.net address in the recursor

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

  1.3.2. Version 2.9.15

   This release fixes up some of the shortcomings in 2.9.14, and adds some
   new features too.

   Bugfixes:

     * allow-recursion-override was on by default, it was meant to be off.

     * Logging was still off in daemon mode, fixed.

     * debian/rules forgot to build an sqllite package

     * Recursor accidentally linked in MySQL - this was the result of an
       experiment with a persistent recursor cache.

     * The PowerDNS recursor had stability problems. It now sorts nameservers
       (roughly) by responsiveness. The 'roughly' part upset the sorting
       algorithm used, the speeds being sorted on changed during sorting.

     * The recursor now outputs the nameserver average response times in
       trace mode

     * LDAP compiles again.

   Improvements:

     * zone2sql can now accept - as a filename which causes it to read stdin.
       This allows the following to work: dig axfr ds9a.nl | zone2sql
       --gmysql --zone=- | mysql pdns, which is a nice way to import a zone.

     * zone2sql now ignores duplicate SOA records which are identical - which
       also makes the above possible.

     * Remove libpqpp dependencies - since we now use the native C API for
       PostgreSQL

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

  1.3.3. Version 2.9.14

   Big release with the fix for the all important 2^30 seconds problem and a
   lot of other news.

     * errno problems would cause compilation problems when using LDAP
       (Norbert Sendetzky)

     * The Generic SQL backend could cause crashes on PostgreSQL when using
       pdns_control notify (Georg Bauer)

     * Debian compatible init.d script (Wichert Akkerman)

     * If using the master or slave features, pdns had the notion of eternity
       ending in 2038, except that due to a thinko, eternity ended out to be
       the 10th of January 2004. This caused a loop to timeout immediately.
       Many thanks to Jasper Spaans for spotting the bug within five minutes.

     * Parts of the SOA field were not cannonicalized

     * The loglevel could in fact cause nothing to be logged (Norbert
       Sendetzky)

   Improvements:

     * The recursor now chooses the fastest nameserver, which causes a big
       speedup!

     * LDAP now has different lookup models

     * Cleanups, better load distribution, better exception handling,
       zone2ldap improvements

     * The recursor was somewhat chatty about TCP connections

     * PostgreSQL now only depends on the C API and not on the deprecated C++
       one

     * PowerDNS can now fully overrule external zones when doing recursion.
       See Chapter 11.

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

  1.3.4. Version 2.9.13

   Big news! Windows is back! Our great friend Michel Stol found the time to
   update the PowerDNS code so it works again under windows.

   Furthermore, big thanks go out to Dell who quickly repaired my trusty
   laptop.

   His changes:

     * Generic SQLite support added

     * Removed the ODBC backend, replaced it by the Generic ODBC Backend,
       which has all the cool configurability of the Generic MySQL and
       PostgreSQL backends.

     * The PowerDNS Recursor now runs as a Service. It defaults to running on
       port 5300, PowerDNS itself is configured to expect the Recursor on
       port 5300 now.

     * The PowerDNS Service is now known as 'PowerDNS' to Windows.

     * The Installer was redone, this time with NSIS2.

     * General updates and fixes.

   Other news:

   Note There appears to be a problem with PowerDNS on Red Hat 7.3 with GCC   
        2.96 and self-compiled binaries. The symptoms are that PowerDNS works 
        on the foreground but fails as a daemon. We're working on it.         
                                                                              
        If you do note problems, let the list know, if you don't, please do   
        so as well. Tell us if you use the RPM or compiled yourself.          
                                                                              
        It is known that not compiling in MySQL support helps solve the       
        problem, but then you don't have MySQL.                               

   There have been a number of reports on MySQL connections being dropped on
   FreeBSD 4.x, which sometimes causes PowerDNS to give up and reload itself.
   To combat this, MySQL error messages have been improved in some places in
   hopes of figuring out what is up. The initial indication is that MySQL
   itself sometimes terminates the connection and, amazingly, that switching
   to a Unix domain socket instead of TCP solves the problem.

   Bug fixes:

     * allow-axfr-ips did not work for individual IP addresses (bug & fix by
       Norbert Sendetzky)

   Improvements:

     * Opteron support! Thanks to Jeff Davey for providing a shell on an
       Opteron. The fixes should also help PowerDNS on other platforms with a
       64 bit userspace.

       Btw, the PowerDNS team has a strong desire for an Opteron :-)

     * pdns_recursor jumbles answers now. This means that you can do poor
       man's roundrobin by supplying multiple A, MX or AAAA records for a
       service, and get a random one on top each time. Interestingly, this
       feature appeared out of nowhere, this change was made to the
       authoritative code but due to the wonders of code-reuse had an effect
       on pdns_recursor too.

     * Big LDAP cleanup. Support for TLS was added. Zone2LDAP also gained the
       ability to generate ldif files containing a tree or a list of entries.
       (Norbert Sendetzky)

     * Zone2sql is now somewhat clearer when reporting malformed line errors
       - it did not always include the name of the file causing a problem,
       especially for big installations. Problem noted by Thom May.

     * pdns_recursor now survives the expiration of all its root records,
       most often caused by prolonged disconnection from the net.

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

  1.3.5. Version 2.9.12

   Release rich in features. Work on Verisign oddities, addition of SQLite
   backend, pdns_recursor maturity.

   New features:

     * --version command (requested by Mike Benoit)

     * delegation-only, a Verisign special. See Section 12.1.1.

     * Generic SQLite support, by Michel 'Who da man?' Stol. See Section A.7.

     * init.d script for pdns_recursor

     * Recursor now actually purges its cache, saving memory.

     * Slave configuration now no longer falls over when presented with a
       NULL master

     * Bindbackend2 now has supermaster support (Mark Bergsma, untested)

     * Answers are now shuffled! It turns out a few recursors don't do
       shuffling (pdns_recursor, djbdns), so we do it now. Requested by Jorn
       Ekkelenkamp of ISP-Services. This means that if you have multiple IP
       addresses for one host, they will be returned in differing order every
       once in a while.

   Bugs:

     * 0.0.0.0/0 didn't use to work (Norbert Sendetzky)

     * pdns_recursor would try to resolve IP address which to bind to,
       potentially causing chicken/egg problem

     * gpgsql no longer reports as gmysql (Sherwin Daganoto)

     * SRV would not be parsed right from disk (Christof Meerwald)

     * An AXFR from a zone hosted on the LDAP backend no longer transmits all
       the reverse entries too (Norbert Sendetzky)

     * PostgreSQL backend now does error checking. It would be a bit too
       trusting before.

   Improvements, cleanups:

     * PowerDNS now reports the numerical IP addresses it binds to instead of
       the, possibly, alphanumeric names the operator passed.

     * Removed only-soa hackery (noticed by Norbert Sendetzky)

     * Debian packaging fixes (Wichert Akkerman)

     * Some parameter descriptions were improved.

     * Cleanups by Norbert: getAuth moved to chopOff, arguments::contains
       massive cleanup, more.

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

  1.3.6. Version 2.9.11

   Yet another iteration, hopefully this will be the last silly release.

   Warning There has been a change in behaviour whereby disable-axfr does     
           what it means now! From now on, setting allow-axfr-ips             
           automatically disables AXFR from unmentioned subnets.              

   This release enables AXFR again, disable-axfr did the opposite of what it
   claimed. Furthermore, the pdns_recursor now cleans its cache, which should
   save some memory in the long run. Norbert contributed some small LDAP work
   which should come in useful in the future.

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

  1.3.7. Version 2.9.10

   Small bugfixes, LDAP update. Released 3rd of July 2003. Apologies for the
   long delay, real life keeps interfering.

   Warning Do not use or try to use 2.9.9, it was a botched release!          

   Warning There has been a change in behaviour whereby disable-axfr does     
           what it means now! From now on, setting allow-axfr-ips             
           automatically disables AXFR from unmentioned subnets.              

     * 2.9.8 was prone to crash on adding additional records. Thanks to
       excellent debugging by PowerDNS users worldwide, the bug was found
       quickly and is in fact present in all earlier PowerDNS releases, but
       for some reason doesn't cause crashes there.

     * Notifications now jump in front of the queue of domains that need to
       be checked for changes, giving much greater perceived performance.
       This is needed if you have tens of thousands of slave domains and your
       master server is on a high latency link. Thanks to Mark Jeftovic of
       EasyDNS for suggesting this change and testing it on their platform.

     * Dean Mills reported that PowerDNS does confusing logging about
       changing GIDs and UIDs, fixed. Cosmetic only.

     * pdns_recursor may have logged empty lines for some users, fixed.
       Solution suggested by Norbert Sendetzky.

     * LDAP: DNS TTLs were random values (Norbert Sendetzky, Stefan
       Pfetzing). New ldap-default-ttl option.

     * LDAP: Now works with OpenLDAP 2.1 (Norbert Sendetzky)

     * LDAP: error handling for invalid MX records implemented (Norbert
       Sendetzky)

     * LDAP: better exception handling (Norbert Sendetzky)

     * LDAP: code cleanup of lookup() (Norbert Sendetzky)

     * LDAP: added support for scoped searches (Norbert Sendetzky)

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

  1.3.8. Version 2.9.8

   Queen's day release! 30th of April 2003.

   Added support for AIX, fixed negative SOA caching. Some other cleanups.
   Not a major release but enough reasons to upgrade.

   Bugs fixed:

     * Recursor had problems expiring negatively cached entries, which wasted
       memory and also led to the continued non-existence of hosts that since
       had come into existence.

     * The Generic SQL backends did not lowercase the names of records, which
       led to new records not being found by case sensitive databases
       (notably PostgreSQL). Found by Volker Goetz.

     * NS queries for zones for which we did not carry authority, but only
       had delegation information, had their NS records in the wrong section.
       Minor detail, but a standards violation on etheless. Spotted by
       Stephane Bortzmeyer.

   Improvements:

     * Removed crypt.h dependency from powerldap.hh, which was a problem on
       some platforms (Richard Arends)

     * PowerDNS can't parse so called binary labels which we now detect and
       ignore, after printing a warning.

     * Specifying allow-axfr-ips now automatically disables AXFR for all
       non-mentioned addresses.

     * A Solaris ready init.d script is now part of the tar.gz (contributed,
       but I lost by whom).

     * Added some fixes to PowerDNS can work on AIX (spotted by Markus
       Heimhilcher).

     * Norbert Sendetzky contributed zone2ldap.

     * Everybody's favorite compiler warning from zone2sql.cc was removed!

     * Recursor now listens on TCP!

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

  1.3.9. Version 2.9.7

   Released on 2003-03-20.

   This is a sweeping release in the sense of cleanup. There are some new
   features but mostly a lot of cleanup going on. Hiding inside is the
   bind2backend, the next generation of the bind backend. A work in progress.
   Those of you with overlapping zones, as mentioned in the changelog of
   2.9.6, are invited to check it out by replacing launch=bind by
   launch=bind2 and renaming all bind- parameters to bind2-. Be aware that if
   you run with many small zones, this backend is faster, but if you run with
   a few large ones, it is slower. This will improve.

   Features:

     * Mark Bergsma contributed query-local-address which allows the operator
       to select which source address to use. This is useful on servers with
       multiple source addresses and the operating system selecting an
       unintended one, leading to remotes denying access.

     * PowerDNS can now perform AAAA additional processing optionally, turned
       on by setting do-ipv6-additional-processing. Thanks to Stephane
       Bortzmeyer for pointing out the need.

     * Bind2backend, which is almost in compliance with the new IETF
       AXFR-clarify (some would say 'redefinition') draft.

       This backend is not ready for primetime but you may want to try it if
       you currently have overlapping zones and note problems. An overlapping
       zone would be having "ipv6.powerdns.com" and "powerdns.com" zones on
       one server.

   Improvements:

     * Zone2sql would happily try to read from a directory and not give a
       useful error about this.

     * PowerDNS now reports the case where it can't figure out any IP address
       of slave nameservers for a zone

     * Removed receiver-threads setting which was experimental and in fact
       only made things worse.

     * LDAP backend updates from its author Norbert Sendetzky. Reverse
       lookups should work now too.

     * An error message about unparseable packets did not include the
       originating IP address (fixed by Mark Bergsma)

     * PowerDNS can now be started via path resolution while running with a
       guardian. Suggested by Maurice Nonnekes.

     * pdns_recursor moved to sbin (reported by Norbert Sendetzky)

     * Retuned some logger errorlevels, a lot of master/slave chatter was
       logged as 'Error'. Reported by Willem de Groot.

   Bugs fixed:

     * zone2sql did not remove trailing dots in SOA records.

     * ldapbackend did not include utility.hh which caused compilation
       problems on Solaris (reported by Remco Post)

     * pdns_control could leave behind remnants in case PowerDNS was not
       running (reported by dG)

     * Incoming AXFR did not work on Solaris and other big-endian systems
       (Willem de Groot helped debugging this long standing problem).

     * Recursor could crash on convoluted CNAME loops. Thanks to Dan Faerch
       for delivering coredumps.

     * Silly 'wuh' debugging output in zone2sql and bindbackend removed
       (spotted by Ivo van der Wijk)

     * Recursor neglected to differentiate between negative cache of NXDOMAIN
       and NOERROR, leading to problems with IPv6 enabled Windows clients.
       Thanks to Stuart Walsh for reporting this and testing the fix.

     * PowerDNS set the 'aa' bit on serving NS records in a zone for which it
       was authoritative. Most implementations drop the 'aa' bit in this case
       and Stephane Bortzmeyer informed us of this. PowerDNS now also drops
       the 'aa' bit in this case.

     * The webserver tended to fail after prolonged operation on FreeBSD,
       this was due to an uninitialised timeout, other platforms were lucky.
       Thanks to G.P. de Boer for helping debug this.

     * getAnswers() in dnspacket.cc could be forced to read bytes beyond the
       end of the packet, leading to crashes in the PowerDNS recursor. This
       is an ongoing project that needs more work. Reported by Dan Faerch,
       with a coredump proving the problem.

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

  1.3.10. Version 2.9.6

   Two new backends - Generic ODBC (windows only) and LDAP. Furthermore, a
   few important bugs have been fixed which may have hampered sites seeing a
   lot of outgoing zonetransfers. Additionally, the pdns recursor now has
   'query throttling' which is pretty cool. In short this makes sure that
   PowerDNS does not send out heaps of queries if a nameserver is unable to
   provide an answer. Many operators of authoritative setups are all too
   aware of recursing nameservers that hammer them for zones they don't have,
   PowerDNS won't do that anymore now, no matter what clients request of it.

   Warning There is an unresolved issue with the BIND backend and             
           'overlapping' slave zones. So if you have 'example.com' and also   
           have a separate slave zone called 'external.example.com', things   
           may go wrong badly. Thanks to Christian Laursen for working with   
           us a lot in finding this issue. We hope to resolve it soon.        

     * BIND Backend now honours notifies, code to support this was
       accidentally left out. Thanks to Christian Laursen for noticing this.

     * Massive speedup for those of you using the slightly deprecated MBOXFW
       records. Thanks to Jorn of ISP Services for helping and testing this
       improvement.

     * $GENERATE had an off-by-one bug where it would omit the last record to
       be generated (Christian Laursen)

     * Simultaneous AXFRs may have been problematic on some backends. Thanks
       to Jorn of ISP-Services again for helping us resolve this issue.

     * Added LDAP backend by Norbert Sendetzky, see Section A.12.

     * Added Generic ODBC backend for Windows by Michel Stol.

     * Simplified 'out of zone data' detection in incoming AXFR support,
       hopefully removing a case sensitivity bug there. Thanks again to
       Christian Laursen for reporting this issue.

     * $include in-zonefile was broken under some circumstances, losing the
       last character of a filename. Thanks to Joris Vandalon for noticing
       this.

     * The zoneparser was more case-sensitive than BIND, refusing to accept
       'in' as well as 'IN'. Thanks to Joris Vandalon for noticing this.

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

  1.3.11. Version 2.9.5

   Released on 2002-02-03.

   This version is almost entirely about recursion with major changes to both
   the pdns recursor, which is renamed to 'pdns_recursor' and to the main
   PowerDNS binary to make it interact better with the recursing component.

   Sadly, due to technical reasons, compiling the pdns recursor and pdns
   authoritative nameserver into one binary is not immediately possible.
   During the release of 2.9.4 we stated that the recursing nameserver would
   be integrated in the next release - this won't happen now.

   However, this turns out to not be that bad at all. The recursor can now be
   restarted without having to restart the rest of the nameserver, for
   example. Cooperation between the both halves of PDNS is also almost
   seamless. As a result, 'non-lazy recursion' has been dropped. See Chapter
   11 for more details.

   Furthermore, the recursor only works on Linux, Windows and Solaris (not
   entirely). FreeBSD does not support the required functions. If you know
   any important FreeBSD people, plea with them to support
   set/get/swapcontext! Alternatively, FreeBSD coders could read the solution
   presented here in figure 5.

   The 'Contributor of the Month' award goes to Mark Bergsma who has
   responded to our plea for help with the label compressor and contributed a
   wonderfully simple and right fix that allows PDNS to compress just as well
   as Other namerervers out there. An honorary mention goes to Ueli Heuer
   who, despite having no C++ experience, submitted an excellent SRV record
   implementation.

   Excellent work was also performed by Michel Stol, the Windows guy, in
   fixing all our non-portable stuff again. Christof Meerwald has also done
   wonderful work in porting MTasker to Windows, which was then used by
   Michel to get the recursor functioning on Windows.

   Other changes:

     * dnspacket.cc was cleaned up by factoring out common operations

     * Heaps of work on the recursing nameserver. Has now achieved *days* of
       uptime!

     * Recursor renamed from syncres to pdns_recursor

     * PowerDNS can now serve records it does not know about. To benefit from
       this slightly undocumented feature, add 1024 to the numerical type of
       a record and include the record in binary form in your database. Used
       internally by the recursing nameserver but you can use it too.

     * PowerDNS now knows about SIG and KEY records *names*. It does not
       support them yet but can at least report so now.

     * HINFO records can now be transferred from a master to PowerDNS (thanks
       to Ueli Heuer for noticing it didn't work).

     * Yet more UltraSPARC alignment issues fixed (Chris Andrews).

     * Dropped non-lazy recursion, nobody was using it. Lazy recursion became
       even more lazy after Dan Bernstein pointed out that additional
       processing is not vital, so PowerDNS does its best to do additional
       processing on recursive queries, but does not scream murder if it does
       not succeed. Due to caching, the next identical query will be
       successfully additionally processed.

     * Label compression was improved so we can now fit all . records in 436
       bytes, this used to be 460! (Code & formal proof of correctness by
       Mark Bergsma).

     * SRV support (incoming and outgoing), submitted by Ueli Heuer.

     * Generic backends do not support SOA serial autocalculation, it
       appears. Could lead to random SOA serials in case of a serial of 0 in
       the database. Fixed so that 0 stays zero in that case. Don't set the
       SOA serial to 0 when using Generic MySQL or Generic PostgreSQL!

     * J root-server address was updated to its new location.

     * SIGUSR1 now forces the recursor to print out statistics to the log.

     * Meaning of recursor logging was changed a bit - a cache hit is now a
       question that was answered with 0 outgoing packets needed. Used to be
       a weighted average of internal cache hits.

     * MySQL compilation did not include -lz which causes problems on some
       platforms. Thanks to James H. Cloos Jr for reporting this.

     * After a suggestion by Daniel Meyer and Florus Both, the built in
       webserver now reports the configuration name when multiple PowerDNS
       instances are active.

     * Brad Knowles noticed that zone2sql had problems with the root.zone,
       fixed. This also closes some other zone2sql annoyances with converting
       single zones.

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

  1.3.12. Version 2.9.4

   Yet another grand release. Big news is the addition of a recursing
   nameserver which has sprung into existence over the past week. It is in
   use on several computers already but it is not ready for prime time.
   Complete integration with PowerDNS is expected around 2.9.5, for now the
   recursor is a separate program.

   In preliminary tests, the recursor appears to be four times faster than
   BIND 9 on a naive benchmark starting from a cold cache. BIND 9 managed to
   get through to some slower nameservers however, which were given up on by
   PowerDNS. We will continue to tune the recursor. See Chapter 12 for
   further details.

   The BIND Backend has also been tested (see the bind-domain-status item
   below) rather heavily by several parties. After some discussion online,
   one of the BIND authors ventured that the newsgroup
   comp.protocols.dns.bind may now in fact be an appropriate venue for
   discussing PowerDNS. Since this discussion, traffic to the PowerDNS pages
   has increased sixfold and shows no signs of slowing down.

   From this, it is apparent that far more people are interested in PowerDNS
   than yet know about it. So spread the word!

   In other news, we now have a security page at Section 1.4. Furthermore,
   Maurice Nonnekes contributed an OpenBSD port! See his page for more
   details!

   New features and improvements:

     * All SQL queries in the generic backends are now available for
       configuration. (Martin Klebermass/bert hubert). See Section A.5.

     * A recursing nameserver! See Chapter 12.

     * An incoming AXFR now only starts a backend zone replacement
       transaction after the first record arrived successfully, thus making
       sure no work is done when a remote nameserver is unable/unwilling to
       AXFR a zone to us.

     * Zoneparser error messages were improved slightly (thanks to Stef van
       Dessel for spotting this shortcoming)

     * XS4ALL's Erik Bos checked how PowerDNS reacted to a BIND installation
       with almost 60.000 domains, some of which with >100.000 records, and
       he discovered the pdns_control bind-domain-status command became very
       slow with larger numbers of domains. Fixed, 60.000 domains are now
       listed in under one second.

     * If a remote nameserver disconnects during an incoming AXFR, the update
       is now rolled back, unless the AXFR was properly terminated.

     * The migration chapter mentioned the use of deprecated backends.

   A tremendous number of bugs were discovered and fixed:

     * Zone parser would only accept $include and not $INCLUDE

     * Zone parser had problems with $lines with comments on the end

     * Wildcard ANY queries were broken (thanks Colemarcus for spotting this)

     * A connection failure with the Generic backends would lead to a
       powerdns reload (cast of many)

     * Generic backends had some semantic problems with slave support.
       Symptoms were oft-repeated notifications and transfers (thanks to Mark
       Bergsma for helping resolve this).

     * Solaris version compiles again. Thanks to Mohamed Lrhazi for reporting
       that it didn't.

     * Some UltraSPARC alignment fixes. Thanks to Mohamed Lrhazi for being
       helpful in spotting these. One problem is still outstanding, Mohamed
       sent a core dump that tells us where the problem is. Expect the fix to
       be in 2.9.5. Volunteers can grep the source for 'UltraSPARC' to find
       where the problem is.

     * Our support of IPv6 on FreeBSD had phase of moon dependent bugs, fixed
       by Peter van Dijk.

     * Some crashes of and by pdns_control were fixed, thanks to Mark Bergsma
       for helping resolve these.

     * Outgoing AXFR in pdns installations with multiple loaded backends was
       broken (thanks to Stuart Walsh for reporting this).

     * A failed BIND Backend incoming AXFR would block the zone until it
       succeeded again.

     * Generic PostgreSQL backend wouldn't compile with newer libpq++, fixed
       by Julien Lemoine/SpeedBlue.

     * Potential bug (not observed) when listening on multiple interfaces
       fixed.

     * Some typos in manpages fixed (reported by Marco Davids).

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

  1.3.13. Version 2.9.3a

   Note 2.9.3a is identical to 2.9.3 except that zone2sql does work           

   Broad range of huge improvements. We now have an all-static .rpm and .deb
   for Linux users and a a link to an OpenBSD port. Major news is that work
   on the Bind backend has progressed to the point that we've just retired
   our last Bind server and replaced it with PowerDNS in Bind mode! This
   server is operating a number of master and slave setups so it should
   stress the Bind backend somewhat.

   This version is rapidly approaching the point where it is a
   better-Bind-than-Bind and nearly a drop-in replacement for authoritative
   setups. PowerDNS is now equipped with a powerful master/slave apparatus
   that offers a lot of insight and control to the user, even when operating
   from Bind zonefiles and a Bind configuration. Observe.

   After the SOA of ds9a.nl was raised:

 pdns[17495]: All slave domains are fresh
 pdns[17495]: 1 domain for which we are master needs notifications
 pdns[17495]: Queued notification of domain 'ds9a.nl' to 195.193.163.3
 pdns[17495]: Queued notification of domain 'ds9a.nl' to 213.156.2.1
 pdns[17520]: AXFR of domain 'ds9a.nl' initiated by 195.193.163.3
 pdns[17520]: AXFR of domain 'ds9a.nl' to 195.193.163.3 finished
 pdns[17521]: AXFR of domain 'ds9a.nl' initiated by 213.156.2.1
 pdns[17521]: AXFR of domain 'ds9a.nl' to 213.156.2.1 finished
 pdns[17495]: Removed from notification list: 'ds9a.nl' to 195.193.163.3 (was acknowledged)
 pdns[17495]: Removed from notification list: 'ds9a.nl' to 213.156.2.1 (was acknowledged)
 pdns[17495]: No master domains need notifications
          

   If however our slaves would ignore us, as some are prone to do, we can
   send some additional notifications:

 $ sudo pdns_control notify ds9a.nl        
 Added to queue
 pdns[17492]: Notification request for domain 'ds9a.nl' received
 pdns[17492]: Queued notification of domain 'ds9a.nl' to 195.193.163.3
 pdns[17492]: Queued notification of domain 'ds9a.nl' to 213.156.2.1
 pdns[17495]: Removed from notification list: 'ds9a.nl' to 195.193.163.3 (was acknowledged)
 pdns[17495]: Removed from notification list: 'ds9a.nl' to 213.156.2.1 (was acknowledged)
            

   Conversely, if PowerDNS needs to be reminded to retrieve a zone from a
   master, a command is provided:

 $ sudo pdns_control retrieve forfun.net
 Added retrieval request for 'forfun.net' from master 212.187.98.67
 pdns[17495]: AXFR started for 'forfun.net', transaction started
 pdns[17495]: Zone 'forfun.net' (/var/cache/bind/forfun.net) reloaded
 pdns[17495]: AXFR done for 'forfun.net', zone committed
          

   Also, you can force PowerDNS to reload a zone from disk immediately with
   pdns_control bind-reload-now. All this happens 'live', per your
   instructions. Without instructions, the right things also happen, but the
   operator is in charge.

   For more about all this coolness, see Section B.1.1 and Section A.9.2.

   Warning Again some changes in compilation instructions. The hybrid pgmysql 
           backend has been split up into 'gmysql' and 'gpgsql', sharing a    
           common base within the PowerDNS server itself. This means that you 
           can no longer compile --with-modules="pgmysql" --enable-mysql      
           --enable-pgsql but that you should now use: --with-modules="gmysql 
           gpgsql". The old launch-names remain available.                    
                                                                              
           If you launch the Generic PgSQL backend as gpgsql2, all parameters 
           will have gpsql2 as a prefix, for example pgsql2-dbname. If        
           launched as gpsql, the regular names are in effect.                

   Warning The pdns_control protocol was changed which means that older       
           pdns_controls cannot talk to 2.9.3. The other way around is broken 
           too. This may lead to problems with automatic upgrade scripts, so  
           pay attention if your daemon is truly restarted.                   
                                                                              
           Also make sure no old pdns_control command is around to confuse    
           things.                                                            

   Improvements:

     * Bind backend can now deal with missing files and try to find them
       later.

     * Bind backend is now explicitly master capable and triggers the sending
       of notifications.

     * General robustness improvements in Bind backend - many errors are now
       non-fatal.

     * Accessability, Serviceability. New pdns_server commands like
       bind-list-rejects (lists zones that could not be loaded, and the
       reason why), bind-reload-now (reload a zone from disk NOW), rediscover
       (reread named.conf NOW). More is coming up.

     * Added support for retrieving RP (Responsible Person) records from
       remote masters. Serving them was already possible.

     * Added support for LOC records, which encode the geographical location
       of a host, both serving and retrieving (thanks to Marco Davids using
       them on our last Bind server, forcing us to implement this silly
       record).

     * Configuration file parser now strips leading spaces too, allowing
       "chroot= /tmp" to work, as well as "chroot=/tmp" (Thanks to Hub Dohmen
       for reporting this for months on end).

     * Added bind-domain-status command that shows the status of all domains
       (when/if they were parsed, any errors encountered while parsing them).

     * Added bind-reload-now command that tries to reload a zone from disk
       NOW, and reports back errors to the operator immediatly.

     * Added retrieve command that queues a request to retrieve a zone from
       its master.

     * Zones retrieved from masters are now stored way smaller on disk
       because the domain is stripped from records, which is derived from the
       configuration file. Retrieved zones are now prefixed with some
       information on where they came from.

   Changes:

     * gpgsql and gmysql backends split out of the hybrid pgmysqlbackend.
       This again changed compilation instructions!

     * pdns_control now uses the rarely seen SOCK_STREAM Unix Domain socket
       variety so it can transport large amounts of text, which is needed for
       the bind-domain-status command, for which see Section A.9.2. This
       breaks compatability with older pdns_control and pdns_server binaries!

     * Bind backend now ignores 'hint' and 'forward' and other unsupported
       zone types.

     * AXFRs are now logged more heavily by default. An AXFR is a heavy
       operation anyhow, some more logging does not further increase the load
       materially. Does help in clearing up what slaves are doing.

     * A lot of master/slave chatter has been silenced, making output more
       relevant. No more repetitive 'No master domains need notifications'
       etc, only changes are reported now.

   Bugfixes:

     * Windows version did not compile without minor changes.

     * Confusing error reporting on Windows 98 (which does not support
       PowerDNS) fixed

     * Potential crashes with shortened packets addressed. An upgrade is
       advised!

     * notify (which was already there, just badly documented) no longer
       prints out debugging garbage.

     * pgmysql backend had problems launching when not compiled in but
       available as a module. Workaround for 2.9.2 is 'load-modules=pgmysql',
       but even then gpgsql would not work! gmysql would then, however. These
       modules are now split out, removing such issues.

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

  1.3.14. Version 2.9.2

   Bugfixes galore. Solaris porting created some issues on all platforms.
   Great news is that PowerDNS is now in Debian 'sid' (unstable). The 2.9.1
   packages in there currently aren't very good but the 2.9.2 ones will be.
   Many thanks to Wichert Akkerman, our 'downstream' for making this
   possible.

   Warning The Generic MySQL backend, part of the Generic MySQL & PostgreSQL  
           backend, is now the DEFAULT! The previous default, the 'mysql'     
           backend (note the lack of 'g') is now DEPRECATED. This was the     
           source of much confusion. The 'mysql' backend does not support     
           MASTER or SLAVE operation. The Generic backends do.                
                                                                              
           To get back the mysql backend, add --with-modules="mysql" or       
           --with-dynmodules="mysql" if you prefer to load your modules at    
           runtime.                                                           

   Bugs fixed:

     * Silly debugging output removed from the webserver (found by Paul
       Wouters)

     * SEVERE: due to Solaris portability fixes, qtypes<127 were broken.
       These include NAPTR, ANY and AXFR. The upshot is that powerdns wasn't
       performing outgoing AXFRs nor ANY queries. These were the 'question
       for type -1' warnings in the log

     * incoming AXFR could theoretically miss some trailing records (not
       observed, but could happen)

     * incoming AXFR did not support TXT records (spotted by Paul Wouters)

     * with some remotes, an incoming AXFR would not terminate until a
       timeout occured (observed by Paul Wouters)

     * Documentation bug, pgmysql != mypgsql

   Documentation:

     * Documented the 'random backend', see Section A.3.

     * Wichert Akkerman contributed three manpages.

     * Building PowerDNS on Unix is now documented somewhat more, see Section
       D.1.

   Features:

     * pdns init.d script is now +x by default

     * OpenBSD is on its way of becoming a supported platform! As of 2.9.2,
       PowerDNS compiles on OpenBSD but swiftly crashes. Help is welcome.

     * ODBC backend (for Windows only) was missing from the distribution, now
       added.

     * xdb backend added - see Section A.11. Designed for use by root-server
       operators.

     * Dynamic modules are back which is good news for distributors who want
       to make a pdns packages that does not depend one every database under
       the sun.

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

  1.3.15. Version 2.9.1

   Thanks to the great enthusiasm from around the world, powerdns is now
   available for Solaris and FreeBSD users again! Furthermore, the Windows
   build is back. We are very grateful for the help of:

     * Michel Stol

     * Wichert Akkerman

     * Edvard Tuinder

     * Koos van den Hout

     * Niels Bakker

     * Erik Bos

     * Alex Bleker

     * steven stillaway

     * Roel van der Made

     * Steven Van Steen

   We are happy to have been able to work with the open source community to
   improve PowerDNS!

   Changes:

     * The monitor command set no longer allows the changing of non-existant
       variables.

     * IBM Universal Database DB2 backend now included in source distribution
       (untested!)

     * Oracle backend now included in source distribution (sligthly tested!)

     * configure script now searches for postgresql and mysql includes

     * Bind parser now no longer dies on records with a ' in them (Erik Bos)

     * The pipebackend was accidentally left out of 2.9

     * FreeBSD fixes (with help from Erik Bos, Alex Bleeker, Niels Bakker)

     * Heap of Solaris work (with help from Edvard Tuinder, Stefan Van Steen,
       Koos van den Hout, Roel van der Made and especially Mark Bakker). Now
       compiles in 2.7 and 2.8, haven't tried 2.9. May be a bit dysfunctional
       on 2.7 though - it won't do IPv6 and it won't serve AAAA. Patches
       welcome!

     * Windows 32 build is back! Michel Stol updated his earlier work to the
       current version.

     * S/Linux (Linux on Sparc) build works now (with help from steven
       stillaway).

     * Silly debugging message ('sd.ttl from cache') removed

     * .debs are back, hopefully in 'sid' soon! (Wichert Akkerman)

     * Removal of bzero and other less portable constructs. Discovered that
       recent Linux glibc's need -D_GNU_SOURCE (Wichert Akkerman).

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

  1.3.16. Version 2.9

   Open source release. Do not deploy unless you know what you are doing.
   Stability is expected to return with 2.9.1, as are the binary builds.

     * License changed to the GNU General Public License version 2.

     * Cleanups by Erik Bos @ xs4all.

     * Build improvements by Wichert Akkerman

     * Lots of work on the build system, entirely revamped. By PowerDNS.

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

  1.3.17. Version 2.8

   From this release onwards, we'll concentrate on stabilising for the 3.0
   release. So if you have any must-have features, let us know soonest. The
   2.8 release fixes a bunch of small stability issues and add two new
   features. In the spirit of the move to stability, this release has already
   been running 24 hours on our servers before release.

     * pipe backend gains the ability to restricts its invocation to a
       limited number of requests. This allows a very busy nameserver to
       still serve packets from a slow perl backend.

     * pipe backend now honors query-logging, which also documents which
       queries were blocked by the regex.

     * pipe backend now has its own backend chapter.

     * An incoming AXFR timeout at the wrong moment had the ability to crash
       the binary, forcing a reload. Thanks to our bug spotting champions
       Mike Benoit and Simon Kirby of NetNation for reporting this.

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

  1.3.18. Version 2.7 and 2.7.1

   This version fixes some very long standing issues and adds a few new
   features. If you are still running 2.6, upgrade yesterday. If you were
   running 2.6.1, an upgrade is still strongly advised.

   Features:

     * The controlsocket is now readable and writable by the 'setgid' user.
       This allows for non-root access to PDNS which is nice for mrtg or
       cricket graphs.

     * MySQL backend (the non-generic one) gains the ability to read from a
       different table using the mysql-table setting.

     * pipe backend now has a configurable timeout using the pipe-timeout
       setting. Thanks fo Steve Bromwich for pointing out the need for this.

     * Experimental backtraces. If PowerDNS crashes, it will log a lot of
       numbers and sometimes more to the syslog. If you see these, please
       report them to us. Only available under Linux.

   Bugs:

     * 2.7 briefly broke the mysql backend, so don't use it if you use that.
       2.7.1 fixes this.

     * SOA records could sometimes have the wrong TTL. Thanks to Jonas
       Daugaard for reporting this.

     * An ANY query might lead to duplicate SOA records being returned under
       exceptional circumstances. Thanks to Jonas Daugaard for reporting
       this.

     * Underlying the above bug, packet compression could sometimes suddenly
       be turned off, leading to overly large responses and non-removal of
       duplicate records.

     * The allow-axfr-ips setting did not accept IP ranges (1.2.3.0/24) which
       the documentation claimed it did (thanks to Florus Both of Ascio
       technologies for being sufficiently persistent in reporting this).

     * Killed backends were not being respawned, leading to suboptimal
       behaviour on intermittent database errors. Thanks to Steve Bromwich
       for reporting this.

     * Corrupt packets during an incoming AXFR when acting as a slave would
       cause a PowerDNS reload instead of just failing that AXFR. Thanks to
       Mike Benoit and Simon Kirby of NetNation for reporting this.

     * Label compression in incoming AXFR had problems with large offsets,
       causing the above mentioned errors. Thanks to Mike Benoit and Simon
       Kirby of NetNation for reporting this.

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

  1.3.19. Version 2.6.1

   Quick fix release for a big cache problem.

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

  1.3.20. Version 2.6

   Performance release. A lot of work has been done to raise PDNS performance
   to staggering levels in order to take part in benchmarketing efforts.
   Together with our as yet unnamed partner, PDNS has been benchmarked at
   60.000 mostly cached queries/second on off the shelf PC hardware. Uncached
   performance was 17.000 uncached DNS queries/second on the .ORG domain.

   Performance has been increased by both making PDNS itself quicker but also
   by lowering the number of backend queries typically needed. Operators will
   typically see PDNS taking less CPU and the backend seeing less load.

   Furthermore, some real bugs were fixed. A couple of undocumented
   performance switches may appear in --help output but you are advised to
   stay away from these.

   Developers: this version needs the pdns-2.5.1 development kit, available
   on http://downloads.powerdns.com/releases/dev. See also Appendix C.

   Performance:

     * A big error in latency calculations - cached packets were weighed 50
       times less, leading to inflated latency reporting. Latency
       calculations are now correct and way lower - often in the microseconds
       range.

     * It is now possible to run with 0 second cache TTLs. This used to cause
       very frequent cache cleanups, leading to performance degradation.

     * Many tiny performance improvements, removing duplicate cache key
       calculations, etc. The cache itself has also been reworked to be more
       efficient.

     * First 'CNAME' backend query replaced by an 'ANY' query, which most of
       the time returns the actual record, preventing the need for a separate
       CNAME lookup, halving query load.

     * Much of the same for same-level-NS records on queries needing
       delegation.

   Bugs fixed:

     * Incidentally, the cache count would show 'unknown' packets, which was
       harmless but confusing. Thanks to Mike and Simon of NetNation for
       reporting this.

     * SOA hostmaster with a . in the local-part would be cached wrongly,
       leading to a stray backslash in case of multiple successively SOA
       queries. Thanks to Ascio Techologies for spotting this bug.

     * zone2sql did not parse Verisign zonefiles correctly as these contained
       a $TTL statement in mid-record.

     * Sometimes packets would not be accounted, leading to 'udp-queries' and
       'udp-answers' divergence.

   Features:

     * 'cricket' command added to init.d scripts that provides unadorned
       output for parsing by 'Cricket'.

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

  1.3.21. Version 2.5.1

   Brown paper bag release fixing a huge memory leak in the new Query Cache.

   Developers: this version needs the new pdns-2.5.1 development kit,
   available on http://downloads.powerdns.com/releases/dev. See also Appendix
   C.

   And some small changes:

     * Added support for RFC2038 compliant negative-answer caching. This
       allows remotes to cache the fact that a domain does not exist and will
       not exist for a while. Thanks to Chris Thompson for pointing out how
       tiny our minds are. This feature may cause a noticeable reduction in
       query load.

     * Small speedup to non-packet-cached queries, incidentally fixing the
       huge memory leak.

     * pdns_control ccounts command outputs statistics on what is in the
       cache, which is useful to help optimize your caching strategy.

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

  1.3.22. Version 2.5

   An important release which has seen quite a lot of trial and error
   testing. As a result, PDNS can now run with a huge cache and concurrent
   invalidations. This is useful when running of a slower database or under
   high traffic load with a fast database.

   Furthermore, the gpgsql2 backend has been validated for use and will soon
   supplant the gpgsql backend entirely. This also bodes well for the gmysql
   backend which is the same code.

   Also, a large amount of issues biting large scale slave operators were
   addressed. Most of these issues would only show up after prolonged uptime.

   New features:

     * Query cache. The old Packet Cache only cached entire questions and
       their answers. This is very CPU efficient but does not lead to maximum
       hitrate. Two packets both needing to resolve smtp.you.com internally
       would not benefit from any caching. Furthermore, many different DNS
       queries lead to the same backend queries, like 'SOA for .COM?'.

       PDNS now also caches backend queries, but only those having no answer
       (the majority) and those having one answer (almost the rest).

       In tests, these additional caches appear to halve the database backend
       load numerically and perhaps even more in terms of CPU load. Often,
       queries with no answer are more expensive than those having one.

       The default ttls for the query-cache and negquery-cache are set to
       safe values (20 and 60 seconds respectively), you should be seeing an
       improvement in behaviour without sacrificing a lot in terms of quick
       updates.

       The webserver also displays the efficiency of the new Query Cache.

       The old Packet Cache is still there (and useful) but see Chapter 9 for
       more details.

     * There is now the ability to shut off some logging at a very early
       stage. High performance sites doing thousands of queries/second may in
       fact spend most of their CPU time on attempting to write out logging,
       even though it is ignored by syslog. The new flag log-dns-details, on
       by default, allows the operator to kill most informative-only logging
       before it takes any cpu.

     * Flags which can be switched 'on' and 'off' can now also be set to
       'off' instead of only to 'no' to turn them off.

   Enhancements:

     * Packet Cache is now case insensitive, leading to a higher hitrate
       because identical queries only differing in case now both match. Care
       is taken to restore the proper case in the answer sent out.

     * Packet Cache stores packets more efficiently now, savings are
       estimated at 50%.

     * The Packet Cache is now asynchronous which means that PDNS continues
       to answer questions while the cache is busy being purged or queried.
       Incidentally this will mean a cache miss where previously the question
       would wait until the cache became available again.

       The upshot of this is that operators can call pdns_control purge as
       often as desired without fearing performance loss. Especially the
       full, non-specific, purge was speeded up tremendously.

       This optimization is of little merit for small sites but is very
       important when running with a large packetcache, such as when using
       recursion under high load.

     * AXFR log messages now all contain the word 'AXFR' to ease grepping.

     * Linux static version now compiled with gcc 3.2 which is known to
       output better and faster code than the previously used 3.0.4.

   Bugs fixed:

     * Packetcache would sometimes send packets back with slightly modified
       flags if these differed from the flags of the cached copy.

     * Resolver code did bad things with filedescriptors leading to fd
       exhaustion after prolonged uptimes and many slave SOA currency checks.

     * Resolver code failed to properly log some errors, leading to operator
       uncertainty regarding to AXFR problems with remote masters.

     * After prolonged uptime, slave code would try to use privileged ports
       for originating queries, leading to bad replication efficiency.

     * Masters sending back answers in differing case from questions would
       lead to bogus 'Master tried to sneak in out-of-zone data' errors and
       failing AXFRs.

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

  1.3.23. Version 2.4

   Developers: this version is compatible with the pdns-2.1 development kit,
   available on http://downloads.powerdns.com/releases/dev. See also Appendix
   C.

   This version fixes some stability issues with malformed or malcrafted
   packets. An upgrade is advised. Furthermore, there are interesting new
   features.

   New features:

     * Recursive queries are now also cached, but in a separate namespace so
       non-recursive queries don't get recursed answers and vice versa. This
       should mean way lower database load for sites running with the current
       default lazy-recursion. Up to now, each and every recursive query
       would lead to a large amount of SQL queries.

       To prevent the packetcache from becoming huge, a separate
       recursive-cache-ttl can be specified.

     * The ability to change parameters at runtime was added. Currently, only
       the new query-logging flag can be changed.

     * Added query-logging flag which hints a backend that it should output a
       textual representation of queries it receives. Currently only gmysql
       and gpgsql2 honor this flag.

     * Gmysql backend can now also talk to PgSQL, leading to less code.
       Currently, the old postgresql driver ('gpgsql') is still the default,
       the new driver is available as 'gpgsql2' and has the benefit that it
       does query logging. In the future, gpgsql2 will become the default
       gpgsql driver.

     * DNS recursing proxy is now more verbose in logging odd events which
       may be caused by buggy recursing backends.

     * Webserver now displays peak queries/second 1 minute average.

   Bugs fixed:

     * Failure to connect to database in master/slave communicator thread
       could lead to an unclean reload, fixed.

   Documentation: added details for strict-rfc-axfrs. This feature can be
   used if very old clients need to be able to do zone transfers with PDNS.
   Very slow.

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

  1.3.24. Version 2.3

   Developers: this version is compatible with the pdns-2.1 development kit,
   available on http://downloads.powerdns.com/releases/dev. See also Appendix
   C.

   This release adds the Generic MySQL backend which allows full master/slave
   semantics with MySQL and InnoDB tables (or other tables that support
   transactions). See Section A.5.

   Other new features:

     * Improved error messages in master/slave communicator will help down
       track problems.

     * slave-cycle-interval setting added. Very large sites with thousands of
       slave domains may need to raise this value above the default of 60.
       Every cycle, domains in undeterminate state are checked for their
       condition. Depending on the health of the masters, this may entail
       many SOA queries or attempted AXFRs.

   Bugs fixed:

     * 'pdns_control purge domain' and 'pdns_control purge domain$' were
       broken in version 2.2 and did not in fact purge the cache. There is a
       slight risk that domain-specific purge commands could force a reload
       in previous version. Thanks to Mike Benoit of NetNation for
       discovering this.

     * Master/slave communicator thread got confused in case of delayed
       answers from slow masters. While not causing harm, this caused
       inefficient behaviour when testing large amounts of slave domains
       because additional 'cycles' had to pass before all domains would have
       their status ascertained.

     * Backends implementing special SOA semantics (currently only the
       undocumented 'pdns express backend', or homegrown backends) would
       under some circumstances not answer the SOA record in case of an ANY
       query. This should put an end to the last DENIC problems. Thanks to
       DENIC for helping us find the problem.

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

  1.3.25. Version 2.2

   Developers: this version is compatible with the pdns-2.1 development kit,
   available on http://downloads.powerdns.com/releases/dev. See also Appendix
   C.

   Again a big release. PowerDNS is seeing some larger deployments in more
   demanding environments and these are helping shake out remaining issues,
   especially with recursing backends.

   The big news is that wildcard CNAMEs are now supported, an oft requested
   feature and nearly the only part in which PDNS differed from BIND in
   authoritative capabilities.

   If you were seeing signal 6 errors in PDNS causing reloads and
   intermittent service disruptions, please upgrade to this version.

   For operators of PowerDNS Express trying to host .DE domains, the very
   special soa-serial-offset feature has been added to placate the new DENIC
   requirement that the SOA serial be at least six digits. PowerDNS Express
   uses the SOA serial as an actual serial and not to insert dates and hence
   often has single digit soa serial numbers, causing big problems with .DE
   redelegations.

   Bugs fixed:

     * Malformed or shortened TCP recursion queries would cause a signal 6
       and a reload. Same for EOF from the TCP recursing backend. Thanks to
       Simon Kirby and Mike Benoit of NetNation for helping debug this.

     * Timeouts on the TCP recursing backend were far too long, leading to
       possible exhaustion of TCP resolving threads.

     * pdns_control purge domain accidentally cleaned all packets with that
       name as a prefix. Thanks to Simon Kirby for spotting this.

     * Improved exception error logging - in some circumstances PDNS would
       not properly log the cause of an exception, which hampered problem
       resolution.

   New features:

     * Wildcard CNAMEs now work as expected!

     * pdns_control purge can now also purge based on suffix, allowing
       operators to purge an entire domain from the packet cache instead of
       only specific records. See also Section B.1.1 Thanks to Mike Benoit
       for this suggestion.

     * soa-serial-offset for installations with small SOA serial numbers
       wishing to register .DE domains with DENIC which demands six-figure
       SOA serial numbers. See also Chapter 15.

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

  1.3.26. Version 2.1

   This is a somewhat bigger release due to pressing demands from customers.
   An upgrade is advised for installations using Recursion. If you are using
   recursion, it is vital that you are aware of changes in semantics.
   Basically, local data will now override data in your recursing backend
   under most circumstances. Old behaviour can be restored by turning
   lazy-recursion off.

   Developers: this version has a new pdns-2.1 development kit, available on
   http://downloads.powerdns.com/releases/dev. See also Appendix C.

   Warning Most users will run a static version of PDNS which has no          
           dependencies on external libraries. However, some may need to run  
           the dynamic version. This warning applies to these users.          
                                                                              
           To run the dynamic version of PDNS, which is needed for backend    
           drivers which are only available in source form, gcc 3.0 is        
           required. RedHat 7.2 comes with gcc 3.0 as an optional component,  
           RedHat 7.3 does not. However, the RedHat 7.2 Update gcc rpms       
           install just fine on RedHat 7.3. For Debian, we suggest running    
           'woody' and installing the g++-3.0 package. We expect to release a 
           FreeBSD dynamic version shortly.                                   

   Bugs fixed:

     * RPM releases sometimes overwrote previous configuration files. Thanks
       to Jorn Ekkelenkamp of Hubris/ISP Services for reporting this.

     * TCP recursion sent out overly large responses due to a byteorder
       mistake, confusing some clients. Thanks to the capable engineers of
       NetNation for bringing this to our attention.

     * TCP recursion in combination with a recursing backend on a
       non-standard port did not work, leading to a non-functioning TCP
       listener. Thanks to the capable engineers of NetNation for bringing
       this to our attention.

   Unexpected behaviour:

     * Wildcard URL records where not implemented because they are a
       performance penalty. To turn these on, enable wildcard-url in the
       configuration.

     * Unlike other nameservers, local data did not override the internet for
       recursing queries. This has mostly been brought into conformance with
       user expectations. If a recursive question can be answered entirely
       from local data, it is. To restore old behaviour, disable
       lazy-recursion. Also see Chapter 11.

   Features:

     * Oracle support has been tuned, leading to the first public release of
       the Oracle backend. Zone2sql now outputs better SQL and the backend is
       now fully documented. Furthermore, the queries are compatible with the
       PowerDNS XML-RPC product, allowing PowerDNS express to run off Oracle.
       See Section A.6.

     * Zone2sql now accepts --transactions to wrap zones in a transaction for
       PostgreSQL and Oracle output. This is a major speedup and also makes
       for better isolation of inserts. See Section 10.1.

     * pdns_control now has the ability to purge the PowerDNS cache or parts
       of it. This enables operators to raise the TTL of the Packet Cache to
       huge values and only to invalidate the cache when changes are made.
       See also Chapter 9 and Section B.1.1.

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

  1.3.27. Version 2.0.1

   Maintenance release, fixing three small issues.

   Developers: this version is compatible with 1.99.11 backends.

     * PowerDNS ignored the logging-facility setting unless it was specified
       on the commandline. Thanks to Karl Obermayer from WebMachine
       Technologies for noticing this.

     * Zone2sql neglected to preserve 'slaveness' of domains when converting
       to the slave capable PostgreSQL backend. Thanks to Mike Benoit of
       NetNation for reporting this. Zone2sql now has a --slave option.

     * SOA Hostmaster addresses with dots in them before the @-sign were
       mis-encoded on the wire.

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

  1.3.28. Version 2.0

   Two bugfixes, one stability/security related. No new features.

   Developers: this version is compatible with 1.99.11 backends.

   Bugfixes:

     * zone2sql refused to work under some circumstances, taking 100% cpu and
       not functioning. Thanks to Andrew Clark and Mike Benoit for reporting
       this.

     * Fixed a stability issue where malformed packets could force PDNS to
       reload. Present in all earlier 2.0 versions.

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

  1.3.29. Version 2.0 Release Candidate 2

   Mostly bugfixes, no really new features.

   Developers: this version is compatible with 1.99.11 backends.

   Bugs fixed:

     * chroot() works again - 2.0rc1 silently refused to chroot. Thanks to
       Hub Dohmen for noticing this.

     * setuid() and setgid() security features were silently not being
       performed in 2.0rc1. Thanks to Hub Dohmen for noticing this.

     * MX preferences over 255 now work as intended. Thanks to Jeff Crowe for
       noticing this.

     * IPv6 clients can now also benefit from the recursing backend feature.
       Thanks to Andy Furnell for proving beyond any doubt that this did not
       work.

     * Extremely bogus code removed from DNS notification reception code -
       please test! Thanks to Jakub Jermar for working with us in figuring
       out just how broken this was.

     * AXFR code improved to handle more of the myriad different zonetransfer
       dialects available. Specifically, interoperability with Bind 4 was
       improved, as well as Bind 8 in 'strict rfc conformance' mode. Thanks
       again for Jakub Jermar for running many tests for us. If your
       transfers failed with 'Unknown type 14!!' or words to that effect,
       this was it.

   Features:

     * Win32 version now has a zone2sql tool.

     * Win32 version now has support for specifying how urgent messages
       should be before they go to the NT event log.

   Remaining issues:

     * One persistent report of the default 'chroot=./' configuration not
       working.

     * One report of disable-axfr and allow-axfr-ips not working as intended.

     * Support for relative paths in zones and in Bind configuration is not
       bug-for-bug compatible with bind yet.

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

  1.3.30. Version 2.0 Release Candidate 1

   The MacOS X release! A very experimental OS X 10.2 build has been added.
   Furthermore, the Windows version is now in line with Unix with respect to
   capabilities. The ODBC backend now has the code to function as both a
   master and a slave.

   Developers: this version is compatible with 1.99.11 backends.

     * Implemented native packet response parsing code, allowing Windows to
       perform AXFR and NS and SOA queries.

     * This is the first version for which we have added support for Darwin
       6.0, which is part of the forthcoming Mac OS X 10.2. Please note that
       although this version is marked RC1, that we have not done extensive
       testing yet. Consider this a technology preview.

          * The Darwin version has been developed on Mac OS X 10.2 (6C35).
            Other versions may or may not work.

          * Currently only the random, bind, mysql and pdns backends are
            included.

          * The menu based installer script does not work, you will have to
            edit pathconfig by hand as outlined in chapter 2.

          * On Mac OS X Client, PDNS will fail to start because a system
            service is already bound to port 53.

       This version is distributed as a compressed tar file. You should
       follow the generic UNIX installation instructions.

   Bugs fixed:

     * Zone2sql PostgreSQL mode neglected to lowercase $ORIGIN. Thanks to
       Maikel Verheijen of Ladot for spotting this.

     * Zone2sql PostgreSQL mode neglected to remove a trailing dot from
       $ORIGIN if present. Thanks to Thanks to Maikel Verheijen of Ladot for
       spotting this.

     * Zonefile parser was not compatible with bind when $INCLUDING
       non-absolute filenames. Thanks to Jeff Miller for working out how this
       should work.

     * Bind configuration parser was not compatible with bind when including
       non-absolute filenames. Thanks to Jeff Miller for working out how this
       should work.

     * Documentation incorrectly listed the Bind backend as 'slave capable'.
       This is not yet true, now labeled 'experimental'.

   Windows changes. We are indebted to Dimitry Andric who educated us in the
   ways of distributing Windows software.

     * pdns.conf is now read if available.

     * Console version responds to ^c now.

     * Default pdns.conf added to distribution

     * Uninstaller missed several files, leaving remnants behind

     * DLLs are now installed locally, with the pdns executable.

     * pdns_control is now also available on Windows

     * ODBC backend can now act as master and slave. Experimental.

     * The example zone missed indexes and had other faults.

     * A runtime DLL that is present on most windows systems (but not all!)
       was missing.

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

  1.3.31. Version 1.99.12 Prerelease

   The Windows release! See Chapter 3. Beware, windows support is still very
   fresh and untested. Feedback is very welcome.

   Developers: this version is compatible with 1.99.11 backends.

     * Windows 2000 codebase merge completed. This resulted in quite some
       changes on the Unix end of things, so this may impact reliability

     * ODBC backend added for Windows. See Section A.10.

     * IBM DB2 Universal Database backend available for Linux. See Section
       A.8.

     * Zone2sql now understands $INCLUDE. Thanks to Amaze Internet for
       nagging about this

     * The SOA Mininum TTL now has a configurable default
       (soa-minimum-ttl)value to placate the DENIC requirements.

     * Added a limit on the simultaneous numbers of TCP connections to accept
       (max-tcp-connections). Defaults to 10.

   Bugs fixed:

     * When operating in virtual hosting mode (See Chapter 8), the additional
       init.d scripts would not function correctly and interface with other
       pdns instances.

     * PDNS neglected to conserve case on answers. So a query for
       WwW.PoWeRdNs.CoM would get an answer listing the address of
       www.powerdns.com. While this did not confuse resolvers, it is better
       to conserve case. This has semantical concequences for all backends,
       which the documentation now spells out.

     * PostgreSQL backend was case sensitive and returned only answers in
       case an exact match was found. The Generic PostgreSQL backend is now
       officially all lower case and zone2sql in PostgreSQL mode enforces
       this. Documentation has been been updated to reflect the case change.
       Thanks to Maikel Verheijen of Ladot for spotting this!

     * Documentation bug - postgresql create/index statements created a
       duplicate index. If you've previously copy pasted the commands and not
       noticed the error, execute CREATE INDEX rec_name_index ON
       records(name) to remedy. Thanks to Jeff Miller for reporting this.
       This also lead to depressingly slow 'ANY' lookups for those of you
       doing benchmarks.

   Features:

     * pdns_control (see Section B.1.1) now opens the local end of its socket
       in /tmp instead of next to the remote socket (by default /var/run).
       This eases the way for allowing non-root access to pdns_control. When
       running chrooted (see Chapter 7), the local socket again moves back to
       /var/run.

     * pdns_control now has a 'version' command. See Section B.1.1.

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

  1.3.32. Version 1.99.11 Prerelease

   This release is important because it is the first release which is
   accompanied by an Open Source Backend Development Kit, allowing external
   developers to write backends for PDNS. Furthermore, a few bugs have been
   fixed:

     * Lines with only whitespace in zone files confused PDNS (thanks Henk
       Wevers)

     * PDNS did not properly parse TTLs with symbolic sufixes in zone files,
       ie 2H instead of 7200 (thanks Henk Wevers)

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

  1.3.33. Version 1.99.10 Prerelease

   IMPORTANT: there has been a tiny license change involving free public
   webbased dns hosting, check out the changes before deploying!

   PDNS is now feature complete, or very nearly so. Besides adding features,
   a lot of 'fleshing out' work is done now. There is an important
   performance bug fix which may have lead to disappointing benchmarks - so
   if you saw any of that, please try either this version or 1.99.8 which
   also does not have the bug.

   This version has been very stable for us on multiple hosts, as was 1.99.9.

   PostgreSQL users should be aware that while 1.99.10 works with the schema
   as presented in earlier versions, advanced features such as master or
   slave support will not work unless you create the new 'domains' table as
   well.

   Bugs fixed:

     * Wildcard AAAA queries sometimes received an NXDOMAIN error where they
       should have gotten an empty NO ERROR. Thanks to Jeroen Massar for
       spotting this on the .TK TLD!

     * Do not disable the packetcache for 'recursion desired' packets unless
       a recursor was configured. Thanks to Greg Schueler for noticing this.

     * A failing backend would not be reinstated. Thanks to 'Webspider' for
       discovering this problem with PostgreSQL connections that die after
       prolonged inactivity.

     * Fixed loads of IPv6 transport problems. Thanks to Marco Davids and
       others for testing. Considered ready for production now.

     * Zone2sql printed a debugging statement on range $GENERATE commands.
       Thanks to Rene van Valkenburg for spotting this.

   Features:

     * PDNS can now act as a master, sending out notifications in case of
       changes and allowing slaves to AXFR. Big rewording of replication
       support, domains are now either 'native', 'master' or 'slave'. See
       Chapter 13 for lots of details.

     * Zone2sql in PostgreSQL mode now populates the 'domains' table for easy
       master, slave or native replication support.

     * Ability to disable those annoying Windows DNS Dynamic Update messages
       from appearing in the log. See log-failed-updates in Chapter 15.

     * Ability to run on IPv6 transport only

     * Logging can now happen under a 'facility' so all PDNS messages appear
       in their own file. See Section 6.3.

     * Different OS releases of PDNS now get different install path defaults.
       Thanks to Mark Lastdrager for nagging about this and to Nero Imhard
       and Frederique Rijsdijk for suggesting saner defaults.

     * Infrastructure for 'also-notify' statements added.

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

  1.3.34. Version 1.99.9 Early Access Prerelease

   This is again a feature and an infrastructure release. We are nearly
   feature complete and will soon start work on the backends to make sure
   that they are all master, slave and 'superslave' capable.

   Bugs fixed:

     * PDNS sometimes sent out duplicate replies for packets passed to the
       recursing backend. Mostly a problem on SMP systems. Thanks to Mike
       Benoit for noticing this.

     * Out-of-bailiwick CNAMES (ie, a CNAME to a domain not in PDNS) caused a
       'ServFail' packet in 1.99.8, indicating failure, leading to hosts not
       resolving. Thanks to Martin Gillstrom for noticing this.

     * Zone2sql balked at zones editted under operating sytems terminating
       files with ^Z (Windows). Thanks Brian Willcott for reporting this.

     * PostgreSQL backend logged the password used to connect. Now only does
       so in case of failure to connect. Thanks to 'Webspider' for noticing
       this.

     * Debian unstable distribution wrongly depended on home compiled
       PostgreSQL libraries. Thanks to Konrad Wojas for noticing this.

   Features:

     * When operating as a slave, AAAA records are now supported in the zone.
       They were already supported in master zones.

     * IPv6 transport support - PDNS can now listen on an IPv6 socket using
       the local-ipv6 setting.

     * Very silly randombackend added which appears in the documentation as a
       sample backend. See Appendix C.

     * When transferring a slave zone from a master, out of zone data is now
       rejected. Malicious operators might try to insert bad records
       otherwise.

     * 'Supermaster' support for automatic provisioning from masters. See
       Section 13.2.1.

     * Recursing backend can now live on a non-standard (!=53) port. See
       Chapter 11.

     * Slave zone retrieval is now queued instead of immediate, which scales
       better and is more resilient to temporary failures.

     * max-queue-length parameter. If this many packets are queued for
       database attention, consider the situation hopeless and respawn.

   Internal:

     * SOA records are now 'special' and each backend can optionally generate
       them in special ways. PostgreSQL backend does so when operating as a
       slave.

     * Writing backends is now a lot easier. See Appendix C.

     * Added Bindbackend to internal regression tests, confirming that it is
       compliant.

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

  1.3.35. Version 1.99.8 Early Access Prerelease

   A lot of infrastructure work gearing up to 2.0. Some stability bugs fixed
   and a lot of new features.

   Bugs fixed:

     * Bindbackend was overly complex and crashed on some systems on startup.
       Simplified launch code.

     * SOA fields were not always properly filled in, causing default values
       to go out on the wire

     * Obscure bug triggered by malicious packets (we know who you are) in
       SOA finding code fixed.

     * Magic serial number calculation contained a double free leading to
       instability.

     * Standards violation, questions for domains for which PDNS was
       unauthoritative now get a SERVFAIL answer. Thanks to the IETF
       Namedroppers list for helping out with this.

     * Slowly launching backends were being relaunched at a great rate when
       queries were coming in while launching backends.

     * MySQL-on-unix-domain-socket on SMP systems was overwhelmed by the
       quick connection rate on launch, inserted a small 50ms delay.

     * Some SMP problems appear to be compiler related. Shifted to GCC 3.0.4
       for Linux.

     * Ran ispell on documentation.

   Feature enhancements:

     * Recursing backend. See Chapter 11. Allows recursive and authoritative
       DNS on the same IP address.

     * NAPTR support, which is especially useful for the ENUM/E.164
       community.

     * Zone transfers can now be allowed per netmask instead of only per IP
       address.

     * Preliminary support for slave operation included. Only for the
       adventurous right now! See Section 13.2

     * All record types now documented, see Chapter 17.

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

    1.3.35.1. Known bugs

   Wildcard CNAMES do not work as they do with bind.

   Recursion sometimes sends out duplicate packets (fixed in 1.99.9
   snapshots)

   Some stability issues which are caught by the guardian

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

    1.3.35.2. Missing features

   Features present in this document, but disabled or withheld from the
   current release:

     * gmysqlbackend, oraclebackend

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

  1.3.36. Version 1.99.7 Early Access Prerelease

   Named.conf parsing got a lot of work and many more bind configurations can
   now be parsed. Furthermore, error reporting was improved. Stability is
   looking good.

   Bugs fixed:

     * Bind parser got confused by filenames with underscores and colons.

     * Bind parser got confused by spaces in quoted names

     * FreeBSD version now stops and starts when instructed to do so.

     * Wildcards were off by default, which violates standards. Now on by
       default.

     * --oracle was broken in zone2sql

   Feature enhancements:

     * Line number counting goes on as it should when including files in
       named.conf

     * Added --no-config to enable users to start the pdns daemon without
       parsing the configuration file.

     * zone2sql now has --bare for unformatted output which can be used to
       generate insert statements for different database layouts

     * zone2sql now has --gpgsql, which is an alias for --mysql, to output in
       a format useful for the default Generic PgSQL backend

     * zone2sql is now documented.

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

    1.3.36.1. Known bugs

   Wildcard CNAMES do not work as they do with bind.

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

    1.3.36.2. Missing features

   Features present in this document, but disabled or withheld from the
   current release:

     * gmysqlbackend, oraclebackend

   Some of these features will be present in newer releases.

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

  1.3.37. Version 1.99.6 Early Access Prerelease

   This version is now running on dns-eu1.powerdns.net and working very well
   for us. But please remain cautious before deploying!

   Bugs fixed:

     * Webserver neglected to show log messages

     * TCP question/answer miscounted multiple questions over one socket.
       Fixed misnaming of counter

     * Packetcache now detects clock skew and times out entries

     * named.conf parser now reports errors with line number and offending
       token

     * Filenames in named.conf can now contain :

   Feature enhancements:

     * The webserver now by default does not print out configuration
       statements, which might contain database backends. Use
       webserver-print-arguments to restore the old behaviour.

     * Generic PostgreSQL backend is now included. Still rather beta.

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

    1.3.37.1. Known bugs

   FreeBSD version does not stop when requested to do so.

   Wildcard CNAMES do not work as they do with bind.

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

    1.3.37.2. Missing features

   \r Features present in this document, but disabled or withheld from the
   current release:

     * gmysqlbackend, oraclebackend

   Some of these features will be present in newer releases.

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

  1.3.38. Version 1.99.5 Early Access Prerelease

   The main focus of this release is stability and TCP improvements. This is
   the first release PowerDNS-the-company actually considers for running on
   its production servers!

   Major bugs fixed:

     * Zone2sql received a floating point division by zero error on
       named.confs with less than 100 domains.

     * Huffman encoder failed without specific error on illegal characters in
       a domain

     * Fixed huge memory leaks in TCP code.

     * Removed further file descriptor leaks in guardian respawning code

     * Pipebackend was too chatty.

     * pdns_server neglected to close fds 0, 1 & 2 when daemonizing

   Feature enhancements:

     * bindbackend can be instructed not to check the ctime of a zone by
       specifying bind-check-interval=0, which is also the new default.

     * pdns_server --list-modules lists all available modules.

   Performance enhancements:

     * TCP code now only creates a new database connection for AXFR.

     * TCP connections timeout rather quickly now, leading to less load on
       the server.

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

    1.3.38.1. Known bugs

   FreeBSD version does not stop when requested to do so.

   Wildcard CNAMES do not work as they do with bind.

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

    1.3.38.2. Missing features

   \r Features present in this document, but disabled or withheld from the
   current release:

     * gmysqlbackend, oraclebackend, gpgsqlbackend

   Some of these features will be present in newer releases.

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

  1.3.39. Version 1.99.4 Early Access Prerelease

   A lot of new named.confs can now be parsed, zone2sql & bindbackend have
   gained features and stability.

   Major bugs fixed:

     * Label compression was not always enabled, leading to large reply
       packets sometimes.

     * Database errors on TCP server lead to a nameserver reload by the
       guardian.

     * MySQL backend neglected to close its connection properly.

     * BindParser miss parsed some IP addresses and netmasks.

     * Truncated answers were also truncated on the packetcache, leading to
       truncated TCP answers.

   Feature enhancements:

     * Zone2sql and the bindbackend now understand the Bind $GENERATE{}
       syntax.

     * Zone2sql can optionally gloss over non-existing zones with
       --on-error-resume-next.

     * Zone2sql and the bindbackend now properly expand @ also on the right
       hand side of records.

     * Zone2sql now sets a default TTL.

     * DNS UPDATEs and NOTIFYs are now logged properly and sent the right
       responses.

   Performance enhancements:

     * 'Fancy records' are no longer queried for on ANY queries - this is a
       big speedup.

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

    1.3.39.1. Known bugs

   FreeBSD version does not stop when requested to do so.

   Zone2sql refuses named.confs with less than 100 domains.

   Wildcard CNAMES do not work as they do with bind.

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

    1.3.39.2. Missing features

   \r Features present in this document, but disabled or withheld from the
   current release:

     * gmysqlbackend, oraclebackend, gpgsqlbackend

   Some of these features will be present in newer releases.

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

  1.3.40. Version 1.99.3 Early Access Prerelease

   The big news in this release is the BindBackend which is now capable of
   parsing many more named.conf Bind configurations. Furthermore, PDNS has
   successfully parsed very large named.confs with large numbers of small
   domains, as well as small numbers of large domains (TLD).

   Zone transfers are now also much improved.

   Major bugs fixed:

     * zone2sql leaked file descriptors on each domain, used wrong Bison
       recursion leading to parser stack overflows. This limited the amount
       of domains that could be parsed to 1024.

     * zone2sql can now read all known zonefiles, with the exception of those
       containing $GENERATE

     * Guardian relaunching a child lost two file descriptors

     * Don't die on a connection reset by peer during zone transfer.

     * Webserver does not crash anymore on ringbuffer resize

   Feature enhancements:

     * AXFR can now be disabled, and re-enabled per IP address

     * --help accepts a parameter, will then show only help items with that
       prefix.

     * zone2sql now accepts a --zone-name parameter

     * BindBackend maturing - 9500 zones parsed in 3.5 seconds. No longer
       case sensitive.

   Performance enhancements:

     * Implemented RFC-breaking AXFR format (which is the industry standard).
       Zone transfers now zoom along at wirespeed (many megabits/s).

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

    1.3.40.1. Known bugs

   FreeBSD version does not stop when requested to do so.

   BindBackend cannot parse zones with $GENERATE statements.

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

    1.3.40.2. Missing features

   \r Features present in this document, but disabled or withheld from the
   current release:

     * gmysqlbackend, oraclebackend, gpgsqlbackend

   Some of these features will be present in newer releases.

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

  1.3.41. Version 1.99.2 Early Access Prerelease

   Major bugs fixed:

     * Database backend reload does not hang the daemon anymore

     * Buffer overrun in local socket address initialisation may have caused
       binding problems

     * setuid changed the uid to the gid of the selected user

     * zone2sql doesn't coredump on invocation anymore. Fixed lots of small
       issues.

     * Don't parse configuration file when creating configuration file. This
       was a problem with reinstalling.

   Performance improvements:

     * removed a lot of unnecessary gettimeofday calls

     * removed needless select(2) call in case of listening on only one
       address

     * removed 3 useless syscalls in the fast path

   Having said that, more work may need to be done. Testing on a 486 saw
   packet rates in a simple setup (question/wait/answer/question..) improve
   from 200 queries/second to over 400.

   Usability improvements:

     * Fixed error checking in init.d script (show, mrtg)

     * Added 'uptime' to the mrtg output

     * removed further GNUisms from installer and init.d scripts for use on
       FreeBSD

     * Debian package and apt repository, thanks to Wichert Akkerman.

     * FreeBSD /usr/ports, thanks to Peter van Dijk (in progress).

   Stability may be an issue as well as performance. This version has a
   tendency to log a bit too much which slows the nameserver down a lot.

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

    1.3.41.1. Known bugs

   Decreasing a ringbuffer on the website is a sure way to crash the daemon.
   Zone2sql, while improved, still has problems with a zone in the following
   format:

 name         IN            A        1.2.3.4
              IN            A        1.2.3.5
            

   To fix, add 'name' to the second line.

   Zone2sql does not close filedescriptors.

   \r

   FreeBSD version does not stop when requested via the init.d script.

   \r

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

    1.3.41.2. Missing features

   Features present in this document, but disabled or withheld from the
   current release:

     * gmysqlbackend, oraclebackend, gpgsqlbackend

     * fully functioning bindbackend - will try to parse named.conf, but
       probably fail

   Some of these features will be present in newer releases.

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

  1.3.42. Version 1.99.1 Early Access Prerelease

   This is the first public release of what is going to become PDNS 2.0. As
   such, it is not of production quality. Even PowerDNS-the-company does not
   run this yet.

   Stability may be an issue as well as performance. This version has a
   tendency to log a bit too much which slows the nameserver down a lot.

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

    1.3.42.1. Known bugs

   Decreasing a ringbuffer on the website is a sure way to crash the daemon.
   Zone2sql is very buggy.

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

    1.3.42.2. Missing features

   Features present in this document, but disabled or withheld from the
   current release:

     * gmysqlbackend, oraclebackend, gpgsqlbackend

     * fully functioning bindbackend - will not parse configuration files

   Some of these features will be present in newer releases.

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

1.4. Security

   As of the 8th of January 2003, no actual security problems with PowerDNS
   2.9.4 or later are known about. This page will be updated with all bugs
   which are deemed to be security problems, or could conceivably lead to
   those. Any such notifications will also be sent to all PowerDNS
   mailinglists and BUGTRAQ.

   All versions of PowerDNS before 2.9 are known to suffer from remote denial
   of service problems which can disrupt operation. Please upgrade to 2.9.4
   as this page will only contain detailed security information from 2.9.4
   onwards.

   If you have a security problem to report, please email us at both
   <powerdns@powerdns.com> and at <ahu@ds9a.nl>. We adhere to the Rain Forest
   Puppy Full Disclosure Policy (RFPolicy) v2.0 and we ask you to do the
   same.

   We remind PowerDNS users that under the terms of the GNU General Public
   License, PowerDNS comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY. This license is
   included in the distribution and in this documentation, see Appendix E.

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

1.5. Acknowledgements

   PowerDNS is grateful for the help of the following people or institutions:

     * Dave Aaldering

     * Wichert Akkerman

     * Antony Antony

     * Mike Benoit (NetNation Communication Inc.)

     * Peter van Dijk

     * Koos van den Hout

     * Andre Koopal

     * Eric Veldhuyzen

     * Paul Wouters

     * Thomas Wouters

     * IETF Namedroppers mailinglist

   Thanks!

   (these people don't share the blame for any errors or mistakes in powerdns
   - those are all ours)

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

                         Chapter 2. Installing on Unix

   You will typically install PDNS > 2.9 via source or via a package. Earlier
   versions used a clumsy binary installer.

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

2.1. Possible problems at this point

   At this point some things may have gone wrong. Typical errors include:

   error while loading shared libraries: libstdc++.so.x: cannot open shared
   object file: No such file or directory

           Errors looking like this indicate a mismatch between your PDNS
           distribution and your Unix operating system. Download the static
           PDNS distribution for your operating system and try again. Please
           contact <pdns@powerdns.com> if this is impractical.

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

2.2. Testing your install

   After installing, it is a good idea to test the basic functionality of the
   software before configuring database backends. For this purpose, PowerDNS
   contains the 'bindbackend' which has a domain built in example.com, which
   is officially reserved for testing. To test, edit pdns.conf and add the
   following if not already present:

           launch=bind
           bind-example-zones
        

   This configures powerdns to 'launch' the bindbackend, and enable the
   example zones. To fire up PDNS in testing mode, execute: /etc/init.d/pdns
   monitor, where you may have to substitute the location of your SysV init.d
   location you specified earlier. In monitor mode, the pdns process runs in
   the foreground and is very verbose, which is perfect for testing your
   install. If everything went all right, you can query the example.com
   domain like this:

           host www.example.com 127.0.0.1
        

   www.example.com should now have IP address 1.2.3.4. The host command can
   usually be found in the dnsutils package of your operating system.
   Alternate command is: dig www.example.com A @127.0.0.1 or even nslookup
   www.example.com 127.0.0.1, although nslookup is not advised for DNS
   diagnostics.

     * example.com SOA record

     * example.com NS record pointing to ns1.example.com

     * example.com NS record pointing to ns2.example.com

     * example.com MX record pointing to mail.example.com

     * example.com MX record pointing to mail1.example.com

     * mail.example.com A record pointing to 4.3.2.1

     * mail1.example.com A record pointing to 5.4.3.2

     * ns1.example.com A record pointing to 4.3.2.1

     * ns2.example.com A record pointing to 5.4.3.2

     * host-0 to host-9999.example.com A record pointing to 2.3.4.5

   When satisfied that basic functionality is there, type QUIT to exit the
   monitor mode. The adventurous may also type SHOW * to see some internal
   statistics. In case of problems, you will want to read the following
   section.

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

  2.2.1. Typical errors

   At this point some things may have gone wrong. Typical errors include:

   binding to UDP socket: Address already in use

           This means that another nameserver is listening on port 53
           already. You can resolve this problem by determining if it is safe
           to shutdown the nameserver already present, and doing so. If
           uncertain, it is also possible to run PDNS on another port. To do
           so, add local-port=5300 to pdns.conf, and try again. This however
           implies that you can only test your nameserver as clients expect
           the nameserver to live on port 53.

   binding to UDP socket: Permission denied

           You must be superuser in order to be able to bind to port 53. If
           this is not a possibility, it is also possible to run PDNS on
           another port. To do so, add local-port=5300 to pdns.conf, and try
           again. This however implies that you can only test your nameserver
           as clients expect the nameserver to live on port 53.

   Unable to launch, no backends configured for querying

           PDNS did not find the launch=bind instruction in pdns.conf.

   Multiple IP addresses on your server, PDNS sending out answers on the
   wrong one, Massive amounts of 'recvfrom gave error, ignoring: Connection
   refused'

           If you have multiple IP addresses on the internet on one machine,
           UNIX often sends out answers over another interface than which the
           packet came in on. In such cases, use local-address to bind to
           specific IP addresses, which can be comma separated. The second
           error comes from remotes disregarding answers to questions it
           didn't ask to that IP address and sending back ICMP errors.

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

2.3. Running PDNS on unix

   PDNS is normally controlled via a SysV-style init.d script, often located
   in /etc/init.d or /etc/rc.d/init.d. This script accepts the following
   commands:

   monitor

           Monitor is a special way to view the daemon. It executes PDNS in
           the foreground with a lot of logging turned on, which helps in
           determining startup problems. Besides running in the foreground,
           the raw PDNS control socket is made available. All external
           communication with the daemon is normally sent over this socket.
           While useful, the control console is not an officially supported
           feature. Commands which work are: QUIT, SHOW *, SHOW varname,
           RPING.

   start

           Start PDNS in the background. Launches the daemon but makes no
           special effort to determine success, as making database
           connections may take a while. Use status to query success. You can
           safely run start many times, it will not start additional PDNS
           instances.

   restart

           Restarts PDNS if it was running, starts it otherwise.

   status

           Query PDNS for status. This can be used to figure out if a launch
           was successful. The status found is prefixed by the PID of the
           main PDNS process.

   stop

           Requests that PDNS stop. Again, does not confirm success. Success
           can be ascertained with the status command.

   dump

           Dumps a lot of statistics of a running PDNS daemon. It is also
           possible to single out specific variable by using the show
           command.

   show variable

           Show a single statistic, as present in the output of the dump.

   mrtg

           See the performance monitoring Chapter 6.

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

                   Chapter 3. Installing on Microsoft Windows

   Note PowerDNS support for Windows is, as of 1.99.12, very recent and       
        therefore quite 'beta'. For reliability, we currently advise the use  
        of the Unix versions. Furthermore there is no support for master or   
        slave operation in the ODBC backend, which is the only one provided   
        currently. This will be fixed soon.                                   

   As of 1.99.12, PowerDNS supports Windows natively. PDNS can act as an NT
   service and works with any ODBC drivers you may have.

   To install PowerDNS for Windows you should check if your PC meets the
   following requirements:

     * A PC running Microsoft NT (with a recent servicepack and at least mdac
       2.5), 2000 or XP.

     * An ODBC source containing valid zone information (an example MS Access
       database is supplied in the form of powerdns.mdb).

   If your system meets these requirements, download the installer from
   http://www.powerdns.com/pdns/. After downloading the file begin the
   installation procedure by starting powerdns-VERSION.exe.

   After installing the software you should create a valid ODBC source. To do
   this you have open the ODBC sources dialog: Start->Settings->Control
   Panel->Administrative Tools->Data Sources (ODBC).

   We'll use the example zone database that is included in the installation
   to explain how to create a source.

   \r When you are in the ODBC sources dialog you activate the System DSN tab.

   Note It is important to create a System DSN instead of an User DNS,        
        otherwise the ODBC backend cannot function.                           

   Press Add..., then you have to select a driver.

   Select Microsoft Access Driver (*.mdb).

   Use PowerDNS as the DSN name, you can leave the description empty.

   Then press Select... to select the database (ie. C:\Program
   Files\PowerDNS\powerdns.mdb).

   Press Ok and you should be done.

   For more information, see Section A.10.

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

3.1. Configuring PDNS on Microsoft Windows

   \r You can specify program parameters in the pdns.conf file which should be
   located in pdns directory (ie. C:\Program Files\PowerDNS\).

   \r To see a list of available parameters you can run pdns.exe --help.

   Note \r A default configuration file has been supplied with the             
        installation.                                                         

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

3.2. Running PDNS on Microsoft Windows

   If you installed pdns on Windows NT, 2000 or XP you can run pdns as a
   service.

   This is how to do it: Go to services (Start->Settings->Control
   Panel->Administrative Tools->Services) and locate PDNS (you should have
   registered the program as a NT service during the installation).

   Double-click on PDNS and push the start button. You should now see a
   progress bar that gets to the end and see the status change to 'Started'.

   This is the same as starting pdns like this: pdns.exe --ntservice

   If you haven't registered pdns as a service during the installation you
   can do so from the commandline by starting pdns like this: pdns.exe
   --register-service

   You can run pdns as a standard console program by using a command prompt
   or Start->Run... This way you can specify command-line parameters (see the
   documentation for commandline options).

   If you chose to add a PowerDNS menu to the start menu during the
   installation you can start pdns using the pdns shortcut in that menu.

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

                   Chapter 4. Configure database connectivity

   This chapter shows you how to configure the Generic MySQL backend, which
   we like a lot. But feel free to use any of the myriad other backends. This
   backend is called 'gmysql', and needs to be configured in pdns.conf. Add
   the following lines, adjusted for your local setup:

         launch=gmysql
         gmysql-host=127.0.0.1
         gmysql-user=root
         gmysql-dbname=pdnstest
      

   Remove any earlier launch statements. Also remove the bind-example-zones
   statement as the bind module is no longer launched.

   Warning Make sure that you can actually resolve the hostname of your       
           database without accessing the database! It is advised to supply   
           an IP address here to prevent chicken/egg problems!                

   Warning Be very very sure that you configure the *g*mysql backend and not  
           the mysql backend. See Section A.5. If you use the 'mysql' backend 
           things will only appear to work.                                   

   Now start PDNS using the monitor command:

         # /etc/init.d/pdns monitor
         (...)
         15:31:30 PowerDNS 1.99.0 (Mar 12 2002, 15:00:28) starting up
         15:31:30 About to create 3 backend threads
         15:31:30 [gMySQLbackend] Failed to connect to database: Error: Unknown database 'pdnstest'
         15:31:30 [gMySQLbackend] Failed to connect to database: Error: Unknown database 'pdnstest'
         15:31:30 [gMySQLbackend] Failed to connect to database: Error: Unknown database 'pdnstest'
      

   This is as to be expected - we did not yet add anything to MySQL for PDNS
   to read from. At this point you may also see other errors which indicate
   that PDNS either could not find your MySQL server or was unable to connect
   to it. Fix these before proceeding.

   General MySQL knowledge is assumed in this chapter, please do not
   interpret these commands as DBA advice!

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

4.1. Configuring MySQL

   Connect to MySQL as a user with sufficient privileges and issue the
   following commands:

 create table domains (
  id              INT auto_increment,
  name            VARCHAR(255) NOT NULL,
  master          VARCHAR(20) DEFAULT NULL,
  last_check      INT DEFAULT NULL,
  type            VARCHAR(6) NOT NULL,
  notified_serial INT DEFAULT NULL,
  account         VARCHAR(40) DEFAULT NULL,
  primary key (id)
 )type=InnoDB;

 CREATE UNIQUE INDEX name_index ON domains(name);

 CREATE TABLE records (
   id              INT auto_increment,
   domain_id       INT DEFAULT NULL,
   name            VARCHAR(255) DEFAULT NULL,
   type            VARCHAR(6) DEFAULT NULL,
   content         VARCHAR(255) DEFAULT NULL,
   ttl             INT DEFAULT NULL,
   prio            INT DEFAULT NULL,
   change_date     INT DEFAULT NULL,
   primary key(id)
 )type=InnoDB;

 CREATE INDEX rec_name_index ON records(name);
 CREATE INDEX nametype_index ON records(name,type);
 CREATE INDEX domain_id ON records(domain_id);

 create table supermasters (
   ip VARCHAR(25) NOT NULL,
   nameserver VARCHAR(255) NOT NULL,
   account VARCHAR(40) DEFAULT NULL
 );

 GRANT SELECT ON supermasters TO pdns;
 GRANT ALL ON domains TO pdns;
 GRANT ALL ON records TO pdns;
        

   Now we have a database and an empty table. PDNS should now be able to
   launch in monitor mode and display no errors:

           # /etc/init.d/pdns monitor
           (...)
           15:31:30 PowerDNS 1.99.0 (Mar 12 2002, 15:00:28) starting up
           15:31:30 About to create 3 backend threads
           15:39:55 [gMySQLbackend] MySQL connection succeeded
           15:39:55 [gMySQLbackend] MySQL connection succeeded
           15:39:55 [gMySQLbackend] MySQL connection succeeded
        

   A sample query sent to the database should now return quickly without
   data:

           $ host www.test.com 127.0.0.1
           www.test.com A record currently not present at localhost
        

   And indeed, the control console now shows:

           Mar 12 15:41:12 We're not authoritative for 'www.test.com', sending unauth normal response
        

   Now we need to add some records to our database:

           # mysql pdnstest
           mysql> INSERT INTO domains (name, type) values ('test.com', 'NATIVE');
           INSERT INTO records (domain_id, name, content, type,ttl,prio)
           VALUES (1,'test.com','localhost ahu@ds9a.nl 1','SOA',86400,NULL);
           INSERT INTO records (domain_id, name, content, type,ttl,prio)
           VALUES (1,'test.com','dns-us1.powerdns.net','NS',86400,NULL);
           INSERT INTO records (domain_id, name, content, type,ttl,prio)
           VALUES (1,'test.com','dns-eu1.powerdns.net','NS',86400,NULL);
           INSERT INTO records (domain_id, name, content, type,ttl,prio)
           VALUES (1,'www.test.com','199.198.197.196','A',120,NULL);
           INSERT INTO records (domain_id, name, content, type,ttl,prio)
           VALUES (1,'mail.test.com','195.194.193.192','A',120,NULL);
           INSERT INTO records (domain_id, name, content, type,ttl,prio)
           VALUES (1,'localhost.test.com','127.0.0.1','A',120,NULL);
           INSERT INTO records (domain_id, name, content, type,ttl,prio)
           VALUES (1,'test.com','mail.test.com','MX',120,25);
        

   If we now requery our database, www.test.com should be present:

           $ host www.test.com 127.0.0.1
           www.test.com          A       199.198.197.196
          
           $ host -v -t mx test.com 127.0.0.1
           Address: 127.0.0.1
           Aliases: localhost

           Query about test.com for record types MX
           Trying test.com ...
           Query done, 1 answer, authoritative status: no error
           test.com              120     IN      MX      25 mail.test.com
           Additional information:
           mail.test.com         120     IN      A       195.194.193.192
        

   To confirm what happened, issue the command SHOW * to the control console:

           % show *
           corrupt-packets=0,latency=0,packetcache-hit=2,packetcache-miss=5,packetcache-size=0,
           qsize-a=0,qsize-q=0,servfail-packets=0,tcp-answers=0,tcp-queries=0,
           timedout-packets=0,udp-answers=7,udp-queries=7,
           %
        

   The actual numbers will vary somewhat. Now enter QUIT and start PDNS as a
   regular daemon, and check launch status:

           # /etc/init.d/pdns start
           pdns: started
           # /etc/init.d/pdns status
           pdns: 8239: Child running
           # /etc/init.d/pdns dump 
           pdns: corrupt-packets=0,latency=0,packetcache-hit=0,packetcache-miss=0,
           packetcache-size=0,qsize-a=0,qsize-q=0,servfail-packets=0,tcp-answers=0,
           tcp-queries=0,timedout-packets=0,udp-answers=0,udp-queries=0,
        

   You now have a working database driven nameserver! To convert other zones
   already present, use the zone2sql described in Appendix A.

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

  4.1.1. Common problems

   Most problems involve PDNS not being able to connect to the database.

   Can't connect to local MySQL server through socket '/tmp/mysql.sock' (2)

           Your MySQL installation is probably defaulting to another location
           for its socket. Can be resolved by figuring out this location
           (often /var/run/mysqld.sock), and specifying it in the
           configuration file with the gmysql-socket parameter.

           Another solution is to not connect to the socket, but to
           127.0.0.1, which can be achieved by specifying
           gmysql-host=127.0.0.1.

   Host 'x.y.z.w' is not allowed to connect to this MySQL server

           These errors are generic MySQL errors. Solve them by trying to
           connect to your MySQL database with the MySQL console utility
           mysql with the parameters specified to PDNS. Consult the MySQL
           documentation.

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

              Chapter 5. Dynamic resolution using the PipeBackend

   Also included in the PDNS distribution is the PipeBackend. The PipeBackend
   is primarily meant for allowing rapid development of new backends without
   tight integration with PowerDNS. It allows end-users to write PDNS
   backends in any language. A perl sample is provided. The PipeBackend is
   also very well suited for dynamic resolution of queries. Example
   applications include DNS based loadbalancing, geo-direction, DNS based
   failover with low TTLs.

   The Pipe Backend also has a separate chapter in the backends appendix, see
   Section A.1.

   Note The Pipe Backend currently does not function under FreeBSD 4.x and    
        5.x, probably due to unfavorable interactions between its threading   
        implementation and the fork system call.                              
                                                                              
        Interestingly, the Linux PowerDNS binary running under the            
        Linuxulator on FreeBSD does work.                                     

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

5.1. Deploying the PipeBackend with the BindBackend

   Included with the PDNS distribution is the example.pl backend which has
   knowledge of the example.com zone, just like the BindBackend. To install
   both, add the following to your pdns.conf:

           launch=pipe,bind
           bind-example-zones
           pipe-command=location/of/backend.pl
        

   Please adjust the pipe-command statement to the location of the unpacked
   PDNS distribution. If your backend is slow, raise pipe-timeout from its
   default of 2000ms. Now launch PDNS in monitor mode, and perform some
   queries. Note the difference with the earlier experiment where only the
   BindBackend was loaded. The PipeBackend is launched first and thus gets
   queried first. The sample backend.pl script knows about:

     * webserver.example.com A records pointing to 1.2.3.4, 1.2.3.5, 1.2.3.6

     * www.example.com CNAME pointing to webserver.example.com

     * MBOXFW (mailbox forward) records pointing to powerdns@example.com. See
       the smtpredir documentation for information about MBOXFW.

   For more information about how to write exciting backends with the
   PipeBackend, see Appendix A.

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

                Chapter 6. Logging & Monitoring PDNS performance

   In a production environment, you will want to be able to monitor PDNS
   performance. For this purpose, currently two methods are available, the
   webserver and the init.d dump, show and mrtg, commands. Furthermore, PDNS
   can perform a configurable amount of operational logging. This chapter
   also explains how to configure syslog for best results.

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

6.1. Webserver

   To launch the internal webserver, add a webserver statement to the
   pdns.conf. This will instruct the PDNS daemon to start a webserver on
   localhost at port 8081, without password protection. Only local users (on
   the same host) will be able to access the webserver by default. The
   webserver lists a lot of information about the PDNS process, including
   frequent queries, frequently failing queries, lists of remote hosts
   sending queries, hosts sending corrupt queries etc. The webserver does not
   allow remote management of the daemon. The following nameserver related
   configuration items are available:

   webserver

           If set to anything but 'no', a webserver is launched.

   webserver-address

           Address to bind the webserver to. Defaults to 127.0.0.1, which
           implies that only the local computer is able to connect to the
           nameserver! To allow remote hosts to connect, change to 0.0.0.0 or
           the physical IP address of your nameserver.

   webserver-password

           If set, viewers will have to enter this plaintext password in
           order to gain access to the statistics.

   webserver-port

           Port to bind the webserver to. Defaults to 8081.

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

6.2. Via init.d commands

   As mentioned before, the init.d commands dump, show and mrtg fetch data
   from a running PDNS process. Especially mrtg is powerful - it outputs data
   in a format that is ready for processing by the MRTG graphing tool.

   MRTG can make insightful graphics on the performance of your nameserver,
   enabling the operator to easily spot trends. MRTG can be found on
   http://people.ee.ethz.ch/~oetiker/webtools/mrtg/mrtg.html

   A sample mrtg.conf:

 Interval: 5
 WorkDir: /var/www/mrtg
 WriteExpires: yes
 Options[_]: growright,nopercent
 XSize[_]: 600

 #---------------------------------------------------------------

 Target[udp-queries]: `/etc/init.d/pdns mrtg udp-queries udp-answers`
 Options[udp-queries]: growright,nopercent,perminute
 MaxBytes[udp-queries]: 600000
 AbsMax[udp-queries]: 600000
 Title[udp-queries]: Queries per minute
 PageTop[udp-queries]: <H2>Queries per minute</H2>
 WithPeak[udp-queries]: ymwd
 YLegend[udp-queries]: queries/minute
 ShortLegend[udp-queries]: q/m
 LegendI[udp-queries]: udp-questions
 LegendO[udp-queries]: udp-answers


 Target[perc-failed]: `/etc/init.d/pdns mrtg udp-queries udp-answers`
 Options[perc-failed]: growright,dorelpercent,perminute
 MaxBytes[perc-failed]: 600000
 AbsMax[perc-failed]: 600000
 Title[perc-failed]: Queries per minute, with percentage success
 PageTop[perc-failed]: <H2>Queries per minute, with percentage success</H2>
 WithPeak[perc-failed]: ymwd
 YLegend[perc-failed]: queries/minute
 ShortLegend[perc-failed]: q/m
 LegendI[perc-failed]: udp-questions
 LegendO[perc-failed]: udp-answers


 Target[packetcache-rate]: `/etc/init.d/pdns mrtg packetcache-hit udp-queries`
 Options[packetcache-rate]: growright,dorelpercent,perminute
 Title[packetcache-rate]: packetcache hitrate
 MaxBytes[packetcache-rate]: 600000
 AbsMax[packetcache-rate]: 600000
 PageTop[packetcache-rate]: <H2>packetcache hitrate</H2>
 WithPeak[packetcache-rate]: ymwd
 YLegend[packetcache-rate]: queries/minute
 ShortLegend[packetcache-rate]: q/m
 LegendO[packetcache-rate]: total
 LegendI[packetcache-rate]: hit

 Target[packetcache-missrate]: `/etc/init.d/pdns mrtg packetcache-miss udp-queries`
 Options[packetcache-missrate]: growright,dorelpercent,perminute
 Title[packetcache-missrate]: packetcache MISSrate
 MaxBytes[packetcache-missrate]: 600000
 AbsMax[packetcache-missrate]: 600000
 PageTop[packetcache-missrate]: <H2>packetcache MISSrate</H2>
 WithPeak[packetcache-missrate]: ymwd
 YLegend[packetcache-missrate]: queries/minute
 ShortLegend[packetcache-missrate]: q/m
 LegendO[packetcache-missrate]: total
 LegendI[packetcache-missrate]: MISS

 Target[latency]: `/etc/init.d/pdns mrtg latency`
 Options[latency]: growright,nopercent,gauge
 MaxBytes[latency]: 600000
 AbsMax[latency]: 600000
 Title[latency]: Query/answer latency
 PageTop[latency]: <H2>Query/answer latency</H2>
 WithPeak[latency]: ymwd
 YLegend[latency]: usec
 ShortLegend[latency]: usec
 LegendO[latency]: latency
 LegendI[latency]: latency

 Target[recursing]: `/etc/init.d/pdns mrtg recursing-questions recursing-answers`
 Options[recursing]: growright,nopercent,gauge
 MaxBytes[recursing]: 600000
 AbsMax[recursing]: 600000
 Title[recursing]: Recursive questions/answers
 PageTop[recursing]: <H2>Recursing questions/answers</H2>
 WithPeak[recursing]: ymwd
 YLegend[recursing]: queries/minute
 ShortLegend[recursing]: q/m
 LegendO[recursing]: recursing-questions
 LegendI[recursing]: recursing-answers

        

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

6.3. Operational logging using syslog

   (logging-facility is available from 1.99.10 and onwards)

   This chapter assumes familiarity with syslog, the unix logging device.
   PDNS logs messages with different levels. The more urgent the message, the
   lower the 'priority'. By default, PDNS will only log messages with an
   urgency of 3 or lower, but this can be changed using the loglevel setting
   in the configuration file. Setting it to 0 will eliminate all logging, 9
   will log everything.

   By default, logging is performed under the 'DAEMON' facility which is
   shared with lots of other programs. If you regard nameserving as
   important, you may want to have it under a dedicated facility so PDNS can
   log to its own files, and not clutter generic files.

   For this purpose, syslog knows about 'local' facilities, numbered from
   LOCAL0 to LOCAL7. To move PDNS logging to LOCAL0, add logging-facility=0
   to your configuration.

   Furthermore, you may want to have separate files for the differing
   prioties - preventing lower priority messages from obscuring important
   ones.

   A sample syslog.conf might be:

 local0.info                       -/var/log/pdns.info
 local0.warn                       -/var/log/pdns.warn
 local0.err                        /var/log/pdns.err
        

   Where local0.err would store the really important messages. For
   performance and diskspace reasons, it is advised to audit your syslog.conf
   for statements also logging PDNS activities. Many syslog.confs have a
   '*.*' statement to /var/log/syslog, which you may want to remove.

   For performance reasons, be especially certain that no large amounts of
   synchronous logging take place. Under Linux, this is indicated by
   filenames not starting with a '-' - indicating a synchronous log, which
   hurts performance.

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

                 Chapter 7. Security settings & considerations

7.1. Settings

   PDNS has several options to easily allow it to run more securely. Most
   notable are the chroot, setuid and setgid options which can be specified.

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

  7.1.1. Running as a less privileged identity

   By specifying setuid and setgid, PDNS changes to this identity shortly
   after binding to the privileged DNS ports. These options are highly
   recommended. It is suggested that a separate identity is created for PDNS
   as the user 'nobody' is in fact quite powerful on most systems.

   Both these parameters can be specified either numerically or as real
   names. You should set these parameters immediately if they are not set!

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

  7.1.2. Jailing the process in a chroot

   The chroot option secures PDNS to its own directory so that even if it
   should become compromised and under control of external influences, it
   will have a hard time affecting the rest of the system.

   Even though this will hamper hackers a lot, chroot jails have been known
   to be broken.

   Warning When chrooting PDNS, take care that backends will be able to get   
           to their files. Many databases need access to a UNIX domain socket 
           which should live within the chroot. It is often possible to       
           hardlink such a socket into the chroot dir.                        
                                                                              
           When running with master or slave support, be aware that many      
           operating systems need access to specific libraries (ofen          
           /lib/libnss*) in order to support resolution of domain names! You  
           can also hardlink these.                                           

   The default PDNS configuration is best chrooted to ./, which boils down to
   the configured location of the controlsocket.

   This is achieved by adding the following to pdns.conf: chroot=./, and
   restarting PDNS.

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

7.2. Considerations

   In general, make sure that the PDNS process is unable to execute commands
   on your backend database. Most database backends will only need SELECT
   privilege. Take care to not connect to your database as the 'root' or 'sa'
   user, and configure the chosen user to have very slight privileges.

   Databases empathic-ally do not need to run on the same machine that runs
   PDNS! In fact, in benchmarks it has been discovered that having a separate
   database machine actually improves performance.

   Separation will enhance your database security highly. Recommended.

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

                           Chapter 8. Virtual hosting

   It may be advantageous to run multiple separate PDNS installations on a
   single host, for example to make sure that different customers cannot
   affect each others zones. PDNS fully supports running multiple instances
   on one host.

   To generate additional PDNS instances, copy the init.d script pdns to
   pdns-name, where name is the name of your virtual configuration. Must not
   contain a - as this will confuse the script.

   When you launch PDNS via this renamed script, it will seek configuration
   instructions not in pdns.conf but in pdns-name.conf, allowing for separate
   specification of parameters.

   Be aware however that the init.d force-stop will kill all PDNS instances!

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

                    Chapter 9. Performance related settings

   Different backends will have different characteristics - some will want to
   have more parallel instances than others. In general, if your backend is
   latency bound, like most relational databases are, it pays to open more
   backends.

   This is done with the distributor-threads setting. Of special importance
   is the choice between 1 or more backends. In case of only 1 thread, PDNS
   reverts to unthreaded operation which may be a lot faster, depending on
   your operating system and architecture.

   Another very important setting cache-ttl. PDNS caches entire packets it
   sends out so as to save the time to query backends to assemble all data.
   The default setting of 10 seconds may be low for high traffic sites, a
   value of 60 seconds rarely leads to problems.

   Some PDNS operators set cache-ttl to many hours or even days, and use
   pdns_control purge to selectively or globally notify PDNS of changes made
   in the backend. Also look at the Query Cache described in this chapter. It
   may materially improve your performance.

   To determine if PDNS is unable to keep up with packets, determine the
   value of the qsize-q variable. This represents the number of packets
   waiting for database attention. During normal operations the queue should
   be small.

   If it is known that backends will not contain CNAME records, the
   skip-cname setting can be used to prevent the normally mandatory CNAME
   lookup that is needed at least once for each DNS query.

   Much the same holds for the wildcards setting. On by default, each
   non-existent query will lead to a number of additional wildcard queries.
   If it is known that the backends do not contain wildcard records,
   performance can be improved by adding wildcards=no to pdns.conf.

   Logging truly kills performance as answering a question from the cache is
   an order of magnitude less work than logging a line about it. Busy sites
   will prefer to turn log-dns-details and log-failed-updates off.

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

9.1. Packet Cache

   PDNS by default uses the 'Packet Cache' to recognise identical questions
   and supply them with identical answers, without any further processing.
   The default time to live is 10 seconds. It has been observed that the
   utility of the packet cache increases with the load on your nameserver.

   Not all backends may benefit from the packetcache. If your backend is
   memory based and does not lead to context switches, the packetcache may
   actually hurt performance.

   The size of the packetcache can be observed with /etc/init.d/pdns show
   packetcache-size

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

9.2. Query Cache

   Besides entire packets, PDNS can also cache individual backend queries.
   Each DNS query leads to a number of backend queries, the most obvious
   additional backend query is the check for a possible CNAME. So, when a
   query comes in for the 'A' record for 'www.powerdns.com', PDNS must first
   check for a CNAME for 'www.powerdns.com'.

   The Query Cache caches these backend queries, many of which are quite
   repetitive. PDNS only caches queries with no answer, or with exactly one.
   In the future this may be expanded but this lightweight solution is very
   simple and therefore fast.

   Most gain is made from caching negative entries, ie, queries that have no
   answer. As these take little memory to store and are typically not a real
   problem in terms of speed-of-propagation, the default TTL for negative
   queries is a rather high 60 seconds.

   This only is a problem when first doing a query for a record, adding it,
   and immediately doing a query for that record again. It may then take up
   to 60 seconds to appear. Changes to existing records however do not fall
   under the negative query ttl ( negquery-cache-ttl), but under the generic
   query-ttl which defaults to 20 seconds.

   The default values should work fine for many sites. When tuning, keep in
   mind that the Query Cache mostly saves database access but that the Packet
   Cache also saves a lot of CPU because 0 internal processing is done when
   answering a question from the Packet Cache.

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

                         Chapter 10. Migrating to PDNS

   Before migrating to PDNS a few things should be considered.

   PDNS is not a recursing nameserver on its own

           If PDNS receives a question for which it is not authoritative, it
           can't go out on the net to figure out an answer. However, because
           many installations are expected to be both authoritative and
           recursing, PDNS can use a separate recursing backend to provide
           non-authoritative answers. See Chapter 11 for more details.

   PDNS does not operate as a 'slave' or 'master' server with all backends

           Only the Generic PostgreSQL, Generic MySQL and BIND backends have
           the ability to act as master or slave.

   To migrate, the zone2sql tool is provided.

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

10.1. Zone2sql

   Zone2sql parses Bind named.conf files and zonefiles and outputs SQL on
   standard out, which can then be fed to your database.

   Zone2sql understands the Bind master file extension '$GENERATE' and will
   also honour '$ORIGIN' and '$TTL'.

   For backends supporting slave operation (currently only the Generic
   PostgreSQL, Generic MySQL and BIND backend), there is also an option to
   keep slave zones as slaves, and not convert them to native operation.

   By default, zone2sql outputs code suitable for the mysqlbackend, but it
   can also generate SQL for the Generic PostgreSQL, Generic MySQL and Oracle
   backends. The following commands are available:

   --bare

           Output in a bare format, suitable for further parsing. The output
           is formatted as follows:

                   domain_id<TAB>'qname'<TAB>'qtype'<TAB>'content'<TAB>prio<TAB>ttl
                

   --gmysql

           Output in format suitable for the default configuration of the
           Generic MySQL backend.

   --gpgsql

           Output in format suitable for the default configuration of the
           Generic PostgreSQL backend.

   --help

           List options.

   --mysql

           Output in format suitable for the default configuration of the
           MySQL backend. Default.

   --named-conf=...

           Parse this named.conf to find locations of zones.

   --on-error-resume-next

           Ignore missing files during parsing. Dangerous.

   --oracle

           Output in format suitable for the default configuration of the
           Generic Oracle backend.

   --slave

           Maintain slave status of zones listed in named.conf as being
           slaves. The default behaviour is to convert all zones to native
           operation.

   --startid

           Supply a value for the first domain_id generated. Defaults at 0.

   --transactions

           For Oracle and PostgreSQL output, wrap each domain in a
           transaction for higher speed and integrity.

   --verbose

           Be verbose during conversion.

   --zone=...

           Parse only this zone file. Conflicts with --named-conf parameter.

   --zone-name=...

           When parsing a single zone without $ORIGIN statement, set this as
           the zone name.

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

                             Chapter 11. Recursion

   (only available from 1.99.8 and onwards, recursing component available
   since 2.9.5)

   From 2.9.5 onwards, PowerDNS offers both authoritative nameserving
   capabilities and a recursive nameserver component. These two halves are
   normally separate but many users insist on combining both recursion and
   authoritative service on one IP address. This can be likened to running
   Apache and Squid both on port 80.

   However, many sites want to do this anyhow and some with good reason. For
   example, a setup like this allows the creation of fake domains which only
   exist for local users. Such domains often don't end on ".com" or ".org"
   but on ".intern" or ".name-of-isp".

   PowerDNS can cooperate with either its own recursor or any other you have
   available to deliver recursive service on its port.

   By specifying the recursor option in the configuration file, questions
   requiring recursive treatment will be handed over to the IP address
   specified. An example configuration might be recursor=130.161.180.1, which
   designates 130.161.180.1 as the nameserver to handle recursive queries.

   As of 2.9.5, the recursing component of PowerDNS is a bit young and
   relatively untested but we hope people will want to use it anyhow. As an
   alternative, we highly advise the use of the DJBDNS dnscache
   (http://cr.yp.to/djbdns/dnscache.html).

   Take care not to point recursor to PDNS, which leads to a very tight
   packet loop!

   By specifying allow-recursion, recursion can be restricted to netmasks
   specified. The default is to allow recursion from everywhere. Example:
   allow-recursion=192.168.0.0/24, 10.0.0.0/8, 1.2.3.4.

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

11.1. Details

   Questions carry a number of flags. One of these is called 'Recursion
   Desired'. If PDNS is configured to allow recursion, AND such a flag is
   seen, AND the IP address of the client is allowed to recurse via PDNS,
   then the packet may be handed to the recursing backend.

   If a Recursion Desired packet arrives and PDNS is configured to allow
   recursion, but not to the IP address of the client, resolution will
   proceed as if the RD flag were unset and the answer will indicate that
   recursion was not available.

   It is also possible to use a resolver living on a different port. To do
   so, specify a recursor like this: recursor=130.161.180.1:5300.

   If the backend does not answer a question within a large amount of time,
   this is logged as 'Recursive query for remote 10.96.0.2 with internal id 0
   was not answered by backend within timeout, reusing id'. This may happen
   when using 'BIND' as a recursor as it is prone to drop queries which it
   can't answer immediately.

   To make sure that the local authoritative database overrides recursive
   information, PowerDNS first tries to answer a question from its own
   database. If that succeeds, the answer packet is sent back immediately
   without involving the recursor in any way. This means that for questions
   for which there is no answer, PowerDNS will consult the recursor for an
   recursive query, even if PowerDNS is authoritative for a domain! This will
   only cause problems if you 'fake' domains which don't really exist.

   If you want to create such fake domains or override existing domains,
   please set the allow-recursion-override feature (available as of 2.9.14).

   Some packets, like those asking for MX records which are needed for SMTP
   transport of email, can be subject to 'additional processing'. This means
   that a recursing nameserver is obliged to try to add A records (IP
   addresses) for any of the mailservers mentioned in the packet, should it
   have these addresses available.

   If PowerDNS encounters records needing such processing and finds that it
   does not have the data in its authoritative database, it will send an
   opportunistic quick query to the recursing component to see if it perhaps
   has such data. This question is worded such that the recursing nameserver
   should return immediately such as not to block the authoritative
   nameserver.

   This marks a change from pre-2.9.5 behaviour where a packet was handed
   wholesale to the recursor in case it needed additional processing which
   could not proceed from the authoritative database.

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

               Chapter 12. PowerDNS resolver/recursing nameserver

   As of 2.9.4, a small recursor comes with PowerDNS. The algorithm is
   influenced by the works of Dan J. Bernstein although all mistakes are
   ours. Here are the current faults, so nobody can accuse us of false
   advertising:

     * Only compiles on Linux, Windows and possibly Solaris. FreeBSD 4.x
       decided not to support the POSIX get/set/swapcontext functions. Bug
       your favorite FreeBSD kernel or libc maintainer for a fix, or ask him
       to port MTasker (see below) to your operating system.

     * May have big problems with truncated packets.

   To compile, add --enable-recursor to configure and the file pdns_recursor
   will be compiled. To run on a different port, use ./syncres
   --local-port=53. To bind to another address, use the local-address
   setting.

   Note PowerDNS author bert hubert has the pdns recursor in production and   
        browsing with it works for him. Furthermore, the LARTC mailinglist    
        (2000 subscribers) is using the pdns recursing nameserver.            

   Good points:

     * Uses MTasker (homepage)

     * Can handle thousands of concurrent questions

     * Code is written linearly, sequentially, which means that there are no
       problems with 'query restart' or anything.

     * Relies heavily on Standard C++ Library infrastructure, which makes for
       little code (406 core lines).

     * Is very verbose in showing how recursion actually works.

     * The algorithm is simple and quite nifty.

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

12.1. pdns_recursor settings

   At startup, the recursing nameserver reads the file recursor.conf from the
   configuration directory, often /etc/powerdns or /usr/local/etc.

   The following settings can be configured:

   aaaa-additional-processing

           If turned on, the recursor will attempt to add AAAA IPv6 records
           to questions for MX records and NS records. Can be quite slow as
           absence of these records in earlier answers does not guarantee
           their non-existance. Can double the amount of queries needed. Off
           by default.

   config-dir

           Directory where the configuration file can be found.

   daemon

           Operate in the background, which is the default.

   delegation-only

           A Verisign special, see Section 12.1.1.

   local-address

           Local IP address (singular) to bind to. Defaults to all addresses.

   local-port

           Local port (singular) to bind to. Defaults to 53.

   quiet

           Don't log queries.

   trace

           If turned on, output impressive heaps of logging. May destroy
           performance under load.

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

  12.1.1. Verisign weirdness

   Verisign, the current operator of the COM and NET zones, decided to add a
   wildcard record so as to draw all queries for non-existing domains to
   their own page, which lists domains you might want to visist instead.

   To reinstate old behaviour, add delegation-only=com,net to your recursor
   configuration.

   What this does is reject all authoritative answers from the COM and NET
   servers. ISC, the current maintainers of BIND, have implemented this
   feature first, PowerDNS has mostly copied their algorithm. Thanks!

   Verisign might decide to evade our tactic with wildcard NS records, by
   which time other measures will be needed to restore the old behaviour.

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

12.2. Details

   PowerDNS implements a very simple but effective nameserver. Care has been
   taken not to overload remote servers in case of overly active clients.

   This is implemented using the 'throttle'. This accounts all recent traffic
   and prevents queries that have been sent out recently from going out
   again.

   There are three levels of throttling.

     * If a remote server indicates that it is lame for a zone, the exact
       question won't be repeated in the next 60 seconds.

     * After 4 ServFail responses in 60 seconds, the query gets throttled
       too.

     * 5 timeouts in 20 seconds also lead to query suppression.

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

12.3. Statistics

   Every half our or so, the recursor outputs a line with statistics. More
   infrastructure is planned so as to allow for Cricket or MRTG graphs. To
   force the output of statistics, send the process a SIGUSR1. A line of
   statistics looks like this:

 Feb 10 14:16:03 stats: 125784 questions, 13971 cache entries, 309 negative entries, 84% cache hits, outpacket/query ratio 37%, 12% throttled

   This means that there are 13791 different names cached, which each may
   have multiple records attached to them. There are 309 items in the
   negative cache, items of which it is known that don't exist and won't do
   so for the near future. 84% of incoming questions could be answered
   without any additional queries going out to the net.

   The outpacket/query ratio means that on average, 0.37 packets were needed
   to answer a question. Initially this ratio may be well over 100% as
   additional queries may be needed to actually recurse the DNS and figure
   out the addresses of nameservers.

   Finally, 12% of queries were not performed because identical queries had
   gone out previously, saving load servers worldwide.

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

                Chapter 13. Master/Slave operation & replication

   PDNS offers full master and slave semantics for replicating domain
   information. Furthermore, PDNS can benefit from native database
   replication.

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

13.1. Native replication

   Native replication is the default, unless other operation is specifically
   configured. Native replication basically means that PDNS will not send out
   DNS update notifications, nor will react to them. PDNS assumes that the
   backend is taking care of replication unaided.

   MySQL replication has proven to be very robust and well suited, even over
   transatlantic connections between badly peering ISPs. Other PDNS users
   employ Oracle replication which also works very well.

   To use native replication, configure your backend storage to do the
   replication and do not configure PDNS to do so.

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

13.2. Slave operation

   On launch, PDNS requests from all backends a list of domains which have
   not been checked recently for changes. This should happen every 'refresh'
   seconds, as specified in the SOA record. All domains that are unfresh are
   then checked for changes over at their master. If the SOA serial number
   there is higher, the domain is retrieved and inserted into the database.
   In any case, after the check the domain is declared 'fresh', and will only
   be checked again after 'refresh' seconds have passed.

   Warning Slave support is OFF by default, turn it on by adding slave to the 
           configuration. The same holds for master operation. Both can be on 
           simultaneously.                                                    

   PDNS also reacts to notifies by immediately checking if the zone has
   updated and if so, retransfering it.

   All backends which implement this feature must make sure that they can
   handle transactions so as to not leave the zone in a half updated state.
   MySQL configured with either BerkeleyDB or InnoDB meets this requirement,
   as do PostgreSQL and Oracle. The Bindbackend implements transaction
   semantics by renaming files if and only if they have been retrieved
   completely and parsed correctly.

   Slave operation can also be programmed using several pdns_control
   commands, see Section B.1.1. The 'retrieve' command is especially useful
   as it triggers an immediate retrieval of the zone from the configured
   master.

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

  13.2.1. Supermaster automatic provisioning of slaves

   PDNS can recognize so called 'supermasters'. A supermaster is a host which
   is master for domains and for which we are to be a slave. When a master
   (re)loads a domain, it sends out a notification to its slaves. Normally,
   such a notification is only accepted if PDNS already knows that it is a
   slave for a domain.

   However, a notification from a supermaster carries more persuasion. When
   PDNS determines that a notification comes from a supermaster and it is
   bonafide, PDNS can provision the domain automatically, and configure
   itself as a slave for that zone.

   To enable this feature, a backend needs to know about the IP address of
   the supermaster, and how PDNS will be listed in the set of NS records
   remotely, and the 'account' name of your supermaster. There is no need to
   fill this out but it does help keep track of where a domain comes from.

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

13.3. Master operation

   When operating as a master, PDNS sends out notifications of changes to
   slaves, which react to these notifications by querying PDNS to see if the
   zone changed, and transferring its contents if it has. Notifications are a
   way to promptly propagate zone changes to slaves, as described in RFC
   1996.

   Warning Master support is OFF by default, turn it on by adding master to   
           the configuration. The same holds for slave operation. Both can be 
           on simultaneously.                                                 

   Left open by RFC 1996 is who is to be notified - which is harder to figure
   out than it sounds. All slaves for this domain must receive a notification
   but the nameserver only knows the names of the slaves - not the IP
   addresses, which is where the problem lies. The nameserver itself might be
   authoritative for the name of its secondary, but not have the data
   available.

   To resolve this issue, PDNS tries multiple tactics to figure out the IP
   addresses of the slaves, and notifies everybody. In contrived
   configurations this may lead to duplicate notifications being sent out,
   which shouldn't hurt.

   Some backends may be able to detect zone changes, others may chose to let
   the operator indicate which zones have changed and which haven't. Consult
   the documentation for your backend to see how it processes changes in
   zones.

   To help deal with slaves that may have missed notifications, or have
   failed to respond to them, several override commands are available via the
   pdns_control tool (Section B.1.1):

   pdns_control notify domain

           This instructs PDNS to notify all IP addresses it considers to be
           slaves of this domain.

   pdns_control notify-host domain ip-address

           This is truly an override and sends a notification to an arbitrary
           IP address. Can be used in 'also-notify' situations or when PDNS
           has trouble figuring out who to notify - which may happen in
           contrived configurations.

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

        Chapter 14. Fancy records for seamless email and URL integration

   PDNS also supports so called 'fancy' records. A Fancy Record is actually
   not a DNS record, but it is translated into one. Currently, two fancy
   records are implemented, but not very useful without additional unreleased
   software. For completeness, they are listed here. The software will become
   available later on and is part of the Express and PowerMail suite of
   programs.

   These records imply extra database lookups which has a performance impact.
   Therefore fancy records are only queried for if they are enabled with the
   fancy-records command in pdns.conf.

   MBOXFW

           This record denotes an email forward. A typical entry looks like
           this:

                 support@yourdomain.com     MBOXFW       you@yourcompany.com
              

           When PDNS encounters a request for an MX record for yourdomain.com
           it will, if fancy records are enabled, also check for the
           existence of an MBOXFW record ending on '@yourdomain.com', in
           which case it will hand out a record containing the configured
           smtpredirector. This server should then also be able to access the
           PDNS database to figure out where mail to support@yourdomain.com
           should go to.

   URL

           URL records work in much the same way, but for HTTP. A sample
           record:

                 yourdomain.com     URL       http://somewhere.else.com/yourdomain
              

           A URL record is converted into an A record containing the IP
           address configured with the urlredirector setting. On that IP
           address a webserver should live that knows how to redirect
           yourdomain.com to http://somewhere.else.com/yourdomain.

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

                       Chapter 15. Index of all settings

   All PDNS settings are listed here, excluding those that originate from
   backends, which are documented in the relevant chapters.

   allow-axfr-ips=...

           Behaviour pre 2.9.10: When not allowing AXFR (disable-axfr), DO
           allow from these IP addresses or netmasks.

           Behaviour post 2.9.10: If set, only these IP addresses or netmasks
           will be able to perform AXFR.

   allow-recursion=...

           By specifying allow-recursion, recursion can be restricted to
           netmasks specified. The default is to allow recursion from
           everywhere. Example: allow-recursion=192.168.0.0/24, 10.0.0.0/8,
           1.2.3.4.

   allow-recursion-override=on|off

           By specifying allow-recursion-override, local data even about
           hosts that don't exist will override the internet. This allows you
           to generate zones that don't really exist on the internet. Does
           increase the number of SQL queries for hosts that truly don't
           exist, also not in your database.

   cache-ttl=...

           Seconds to store packets in the PacketCache. See Section 9.1.

   chroot=...

           If set, chroot to this directory for more security. See Chapter 7.

   config-dir=...

           Location of configuration directory (pdns.conf)

   config-name=...

           Name of this virtual configuration - will rename the binary image.
           See Chapter 8.

   control-console=...

           Debugging switch - don't use.

   daemon=...

           Operate as a daemon

   default-soa-name=...

           name to insert in the SOA record if none set in the backend

   disable-axfr=...

           Do not allow zone transfers. Before 2.9.10, this could be
           overridden by allow-axfr-ips.

   disable-tcp=...

           Do not listen to TCP queries. Breaks RFC compliance.

   distributor-threads=...

           Default number of Distributor (backend) threads to start. See
           Chapter 9.

   fancy-records=...

           Process URL and MBOXFW records. See Chapter 14.

   guardian | --guardian=yes | --guardian=no

           Run within a guardian process. See Section B.2.

   help

           Provide a helpful message

   launch=...

           Which backends to launch and order to query them in. See Section
           B.3.

   lazy-recursion=...

           On by default as of 2.1. Checks local data first before recursing.
           See Chapter 11.

   load-modules=...

           Load this module - supply absolute or relative path. See Section
           B.3.

   local-address=...

           Local IP address to which we bind. You can specify multiple
           addresses separated by commas or whitespace. It is highly advised
           to bind to specific interfaces and not use the default 'bind to
           any'. This causes big problems if you have multiple IP addresses.
           Unix does not provide a way of figuring out what IP address a
           packet was sent to when binding to any.

   local-port=...

           The port on which we listen. Only one port possible.

   log-failed-updates=...

           If set to 'no', failed Windows Dynamic Updates will not be logged.

   log-dns-details=...

           If set to 'no', informative-only DNS details will not even be sent
           to syslog, improving performance. Available from 2.5 and onwards.

   logging-facility=...

           If set to a a digit, logging is performed under this LOCAL
           facility. See Section 6.3. Available from 1.99.9 and onwards.

   loglevel=...

           Amount of logging. Higher is more. Do not set below 3

   max-queue-length=...

           If this many packets are waiting for database attention, consider
           the situation hopeless and respawn.

   module-dir=...

           Default directory for modules. See Section B.3.

   negquery-cache-ttl=...

           Seconds to store queries with no answer in the Query Cache. See
           Section 9.2.

   no-config

           Do not attempt to read the configuration file.

   out-of-zone-additional-processing |
   --out-of-zone-additional-processing=yes |
   --out-of-zone-additional-processing=no

           Do out of zone additional processing

   query-cache-ttl=...

           Seconds to store queries with an answer in the Query Cache. See
           Section 9.2.

   queue-limit=...

           Maximum number of miliseconds to queue a query. See Chapter 9.

   query-local-address=...

           The IP address to use as a source address for sending queries.
           Useful if you have multiple IPs and pdns is not bound to the IP
           address your operating system uses by default for outgoing
           packets.

   query-logging | query-logging=yes | query-logging=no

           Hints to a backend that it should log a textual representation of
           queries it performs. Can be set at runtime.

   recursive-cache-ttl=...

           Seconds to store recursive packets in the PacketCache. See Section
           9.1.

   recursor=...

           If set, recursive queries will be handed to the recursor specified
           here. See Chapter 11.

   setgid=...

           If set, change group id to this gid for more security. See Chapter
           7.

   setuid=...

           If set, change user id to this uid for more security. See Chapter
           7.

   skip-cname | --skip-cname=yes | --skip-cname=no

           Do not perform CNAME indirection for each query. Has performance
           implications. See Chapter 7.

   slave-cycle-interval=60

           Schedule slave up-to-date checks of domains whose status is
           unknown every .. seconds. See Chapter 14.

   smtpredirector=...

           Our smtpredir MX host. See Chapter 14.

   soa-serial-offset=...

           If your database contains single-digit SOA serials and you need to
           host .DE domains, this setting can help placate their 6-digit SOA
           serial requirements. Suggested value is to set this to 1000000
           which adds 1000000 to all SOA Serials under that offset.

   socket-dir=...

           Where the controlsocket will live. See Section B.1.

   strict-rfc-axfrs | --strict-rfc-axfrs=yes | --strict-rfc-axfrs=no

           Perform strictly RFC conformant AXFRs, which are slow, but needed
           to placate some old client tools.

   urlredirector=...

           Where we send hosts to that need to be url redirected. See Chapter
           14.

   version-string=anonymous|powerdns|full|custom

           When queried for its version over DNS (dig chaos txt version.bind
           @pdns.ip.address), PowerDNS normally resonds truthfully. With this
           setting you can overrule what will be returned. Set the
           version-string to 'full' to get the default behaviour, to
           'powerdns' to just make it state 'served by PowerDNS -
           http://www.powerdns.com'. The 'anonymous' setting will return a
           ServFail, much like Microsoft nameservers do. You can set this
           response to a custom value as well.

   webserver | --webserver=yes | --webserver=no

           Start a webserver for monitoring. See Chapter 6.

   webserver-address=...

           IP Address of webserver to listen on. See Chapter 6.

   webserver-password=...

           Password required for accessing the webserver. See Chapter 6.

   webserver-port=...

           Port of webserver to listen on. See Chapter 6.

   wildcard-url=...

           Check for wildcard URL records.

   wildcards=...

           Honor wildcards in the database. On by default. Turning this off
           has performance implications, see Chapter 9.

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

                   Chapter 16. Index of all internal metrics

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

16.1. Counters & variables

   A number of counters and variables are set during PDNS operation. These
   can be queried with the init.d dump, show and mrtg commands, or viewed
   with the webserver.

   corrupt-packets

           Number of corrupt packets received

   latency

           Average number of microseconds a packet spends within PDNS

   packetcache-hit

           Number of packets which were answered out of the cache

   packetcache-miss

           Number of times a packet could not be answered out of the cache

   packetcache-size

           Amount of packets in the packetcache

   qsize-a

           Size of the queue before the transmitting socket.

   qsize-q

           Number of packets waiting for database attention

   servfail-packets

           Amount of packets that could not be answered due to database
           problems

   tcp-answers

           Number of answers sent out over TCP

   tcp-questions

           Number of questions received over TCP

   timedout-questions

           Amount of packets that were dropped because they had to wait too
           long internally

   udp-answers

           Number of answers sent out over UDP

   udp-questions

           Number of questions received over UDP

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

  16.1.1. Ring buffers

   Besides counters, PDNS also maintains the ringbuffers. A ringbuffer
   records events, each new event gets a place in the buffer until it is
   full. When full, earlier entries get overwritten, hence the name 'ring'.

   By counting the entries in the buffer, statistics can be generated. These
   statistics can currently only be viewed using the webserver and are in
   fact not even collected without the webserver running.

   The following ringbuffers are available:

   Log messages (logmessages)

           All messages logged

   Queries for existing records but for a type we don't have
   (noerror-queries)

           Queries for, say, the AAAA record of a domain, when only an A is
           available. Queries are listed in the following format: name/type.
           So an AAA query for pdns.powerdns.com looks like
           pdns.powerdns.com/AAAA.

   Queries for non-existing records within existing domains(nxdomain-queries)

           If PDNS knows it is authoritative over a domain, and it sees a
           question for a record in that domain that does not exist, it is
           able to send out an authoritative 'no such domain' message.
           Indicates that hosts are trying to connect to services really not
           in your zone.

   UDP queries received (udp-queries)

           All UDP queries seen.

   Remote server IP addresses (remotes)

           Hosts querying PDNS. Be aware that UDP is anonymous - person A can
           send queries that appear to be coming from person B.

   Remotes sending corrupt packets (remote-corrupts)

           Hosts sending PDNS broken packets, possibly meant to disrupt
           service. Be aware that UDP is anonymous - person A can send
           queries that appear to be coming from person B.

   Remotes querying domains for which we are not auth (remote-unauth)

           It may happen that there are misconfigured hosts on the internet
           which are configured to think that a PDNS installation is in fact
           a resolving nameserver. These hosts will not get useful answers
           from PDNS. This buffer lists hosts sending queries for domains
           which PDNS does not know about.

   Queries that could not be answered due to backend errors
   (servfail-queries)

           For one reason or another, a backend may be unable to extract
           answers for a certain domain from its storage. This may be due to
           a corrupt database or to inconsistent data. When this happens,
           PDNS sends out a 'servfail' packet indicating that it was unable
           to answer the question. This buffer shows which queries have been
           causing servfails.

   Queries for domains that we are not authoritative for (unauth-queries)

           If a domain is delegated to a PDNS instance, but the backend is
           not made aware of this fact, questions come in for which no answer
           is available, nor is the authority. Use this ringbuffer to spot
           such queries.

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

              Chapter 17. Supported record types and their storage

   This chapter lists all record types PDNS supports, and how they are stored
   in backends. The list is mostly alphabetical but some types are grouped.

   A

           The A record contains an IP address. It is stored as a decimal
           dotted quad string, for example: '213.244.168.210'.

   AAAA

           The AAAA record contains an IPv6 address. An example:
           '3ffe:8114:2000:bf0::1'.

   CNAME

           The CNAME record specifies the canonical name of a record. It is
           stored plainly. Like all other records, it is not terminated by a
           dot. A sample might be 'webserver-01.yourcompany.com'.

   HINFO

           Hardware Info record, used to specify CPU and operating system.
           Stored with a single space separating these two, example: 'i386
           Linux'.

   MX

           The MX record specifies a mail exchanger host for a domain. Each
           mail exchanger also has a priority or preference. This should be
           specified in the separate field dedicated for that purpose, often
           called 'prio'.

   NAPTR

           \r Naming Authority Pointer, RFC 2915. Stored as follows:

               '100  50  "s"  "z3950+I2L+I2C"     ""  _z3950._tcp.gatech.edu'.
              

           The fields are: order, preference, flags, service, regex,
           replacement. Note that the replacement is not enclosed in quotes,
           and should not be. The replacement may be omitted, in which case
           it is empty. See also RFC 2916 for how to use NAPTR for ENUM
           (E.164) purposes.

   NS

           Nameserver record. Specifies nameservers for a domain. Stored
           plainly: 'ns1.powerdns.com', as always without a terminating dot.

   PTR

           Reverse pointer, used to specify the host name belonging to an IP
           or IPv6 address. Name is stored plainly: 'www.powerdns.com'. As
           always, no terminating dot.

   RP

           Responsible Person record, as described in RFC 1183. Stored with a
           single space between the mailbox name and the more-information
           pointer. Example 'peter.powerdns.com peter.people.powerdns.com',
           to indicate that peter@powerdns.com is responsible and that more
           information about peter is available by querying the TXT record of
           peter.people.powerdns.com.

   SOA

           The Start of Authority record is one of the most complex
           available. It specifies a lot about a domain: the name of the
           master nameserver ('the primary'), the hostmaster and a set of
           numbers indicating how the data in this domain expires and how
           often it needs to be checked. Further more, it contains a serial
           number which should rise on each change of the domain.

           The stored format is:

                 primary hostmaster serial refresh retry expire default_ttl
              

           Besides the primary and the hostmaster, all fields are numerical.
           PDNS has a set of default values:

           Table 17-1. SOA fields

           +-----------------------------------------------------+
           | primary     | default-soa-name configuration option |
           |-------------+---------------------------------------|
           | hostmaster  | hostmaster@domain-name                |
           |-------------+---------------------------------------|
           | serial      | 0                                     |
           |-------------+---------------------------------------|
           | refresh     | 10800 (3 hours)                       |
           |-------------+---------------------------------------|
           | retry       | 3600 (1 hour)                         |
           |-------------+---------------------------------------|
           | expire      | 604800 (1 week)                       |
           |-------------+---------------------------------------|
           | default_ttl | 3600 (1 hour)                         |
           +-----------------------------------------------------+

           The fields have complicated and sometimes controversial meanings.
           The 'serial' field is special. If left at 0, the default, PDNS
           will perform an internal list of the domain to determine highest
           change_date field of all records within the zone, and use that as
           the zone serial number. This means that the serial number is
           always raised when changes are made to the zone, as long as the
           change_date field is being set.

   SRV

           SRV records can be used to encode the location and port of
           services on a domain name. When encoding, the priority field is
           used to encode the priority. For example,
           '_ldap._tcp.dc._msdcs.conaxis.ch SRV 0 100 389 mars.conaxis.ch'
           would be encoded with 0 in the priorit field and '100 389
           mars.conaxis.ch' in the tontent field.

   TXT

           The TXT field can be used to attach textual data to a domain. Text
           is stored plainly.

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

                 Chapter 18. HOWTO & Frequently Asked Questions

   This chapter contains a number of FAQs and HOWTOs.

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

18.1. Getting support, free and paid FAQ

   PowerDNS is an open source program so you may get help from the PowerDNS
   users' community or from its authors. You may also help others (please
   do).

   Some users may not have experience in interacting with developers or the
   open source community. This FAQ is to be considered MANDATORY READING
   before asking us for help.

   Q: Help!

           A: Please try harder. Specifically, before people will be able to
           help you, they need to know a lot about your system. Things you
           may find irrelevant. But, as you have a problem, you are not in a
           good position to know what is relevant and what not.

   Q: I have a question, what details should I supply?

           A: Start out with stating what you think should be happening.
           Quite often, wrong expectations are the actual proble.
           Furthermore, which database backend you use, your operating
           system, which version of PowerDNS you use and where you got it
           from (RPM, .DEB, tar.gz). If you compiled it yourself, what were
           the ./configure parameters.

           In the Open Source community, not supplying vital details is
           interpreted as a lack of respect for those willing to take time to
           answer your questions!

           If at *all* possible, supply the actual name of your domain and
           the IP address of your server(s).

   Q: Where should I send my question?

           A: To a mailinglist. Do not mail the authors directly unless you
           previously entered a support contract with them! For subscription
           details, see the mailinglists page.

           Questions about using PowerDNS should be sent to the pdns-users
           list, questions about compiler errors or feature requests to
           pdns-dev.

           Before posting, read all FAQs and tell people you did.

   Q: I'm special, I don't email to mailinglists!

           We're special too, and we ask you to mail the mailinglists. If you
           need privacy, consider entering a support relationship with us, in
           which case you can email <support@powerdns.com>.

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

18.2. Using and Compiling PowerDNS FAQ

   In the course of compiling and using PowerDNS, many questions may arise.
   Here are some we've heard earlier or questions we expect people may have.
   Please read this list before mailing us!

   Q: I get this entry a lot of times in my log file: Authoritative empty NO
   ERROR to 1.2.3.4 for 'powerdns.nl' (AAAA)..

           As the name implies, this is not an error. It tells you there are
           questions for a domain which exists in your database, but for
           which no record of the requested type exists. To get rid of this
           error, add log-dns-details=off to your configuration.

   Q: Can I launch multiple backends simultaneously?

           A: You can. This might for example be useful to keep an existing
           BIND configuration around but to store new zones in, say MySQL.
           The syntax to use is 'launch=bind,gmysql'.

   Q: PowerDNS does not give authoritative answers, how come?

           A: This is almost always not the case. An authoritative answer is
           recognized by the 'AA' bit being set. Many tools prominently print
           the number of Authority records included in an answer, leading
           users to conclude that the absence or presence of these records
           indicates the authority of an answer. This is not the case.

           Verily, many misguided country code domain operators have fallen
           into this trap and demand authority records, even though these are
           fluff and quite often misleading. Invite such operators to look at
           section 6.2.1 of RFC 1034, which shows a correct authoritative
           answer without authority records. In fact, none of the
           non-deprecated authoritative answers shown have authority records!

           Sorry for sounding like DJB on this, but we get so many misguided
           questions about authority..

   Q: Which backend should I use? There are so many!

           A: If you have no external constraints, the Generic MySQL (gmysql)
           and Generic PostgreSQL (gpgsql) ones are probably the most used
           and complete. By all means do not use the non-generic MySQL
           backend, which is deprecated and only available for older
           installations.

           The Oracle backend also has happy users, we know of no deployments
           of the DB2 backend. The BIND backend is pretty capable too in
           fact, but many prefer a relational database.

   Q: I try to launch the pgmysqlbackend and it can't find it!

           A: You did not read the changelog, nor the README. The 'pgmysql'
           backend is no more and has been split into the gmysql and gpgsql
           backends, with the common code residing within PowerDNS itself.

   Q: PowerDNS compiles under OpenBSD, but crashes immediately, now what?

           A: Reasons behind this are somewhat unclear but we hear they go
           away if you use a more recent compiler. Let us know on
           <pdns-dev@mailman.powerdns.com>. See also here.

   Q: I'm trying to build from CVS but I get lots of weird errors!

           A: Read the 'HACKING' file, it lists the build requirements
           (mostly autoconf, automake, libtool). In many cases, it may be
           easier to build from the source distribution though.

   Q: I'm on Solaris 7 and AAAA records do not work

           A: Indeed, and this is pretty sad. Either upgrade to Solaris 8 or
           convince people to write the replacement functions needed to
           encode AAAA if the host operating system does not offer them.

   Q: When compiling I get errors about 'sstream' and 'ostringstream', or
   BITSPERCHAR

           A: Your gcc is too old. Versions 2.95.2 and older are not
           supported. Many distributions have improved gcc 2.95.2 with an
           ostringstream implementation, in which case their 2.95.2 is also
           supported. We like gcc 3.2.1 best.

   Q: Ok, I've installed gcc 3.2.1 but now the gpgsql backend won't link

           A: Sadly, the gcc C++ on-disk object format has changed a few
           times since the 2.95 days. This means that gcc 3.2.1 cannot link
           against libpq++.so compiled with 2.95. The trick is to recompile
           PostgreSQL with 3.2.1 too and have it install in a separate
           location. Then reconfigure the pdns compile to look there, with
           ./configure --with-pgsql-lib=/opt/postgresql-with-3.2.1/lib

   Q: I've installed PostgreSQL 7.3 but it has no libpq++.so

           A: As of 7.3, libpq++ has been split out of the main PostgreSQL
           distribution. See here. It would in fact be a great idea to move
           the gpgsql backend to the C interface instead of the C++ one. On
           Debian 'Sid', libpq++.so hides in the libpqpp-dev package.

   Q: PowerDNS crashes when I install the pdns-static .deb on Debian SID

           A: Indeed. Install the .debs that come with Debian or recompile
           PowerDNS yourself. If not using MySQL, the crashes will go away if
           you remove setuid and setgid statements from the configuration.

   Q: Why don't my slaves act on notifications and transfer my updated zone?

           A: Raise the serial number of your zone. In most backends, this is
           the first digit of the SOA contents field. If this number is lower
           to equal to that on a slave, it will not consider your zone
           updated.

   Q: Master or Slave support is not working, PDNS is not picking up changes

           A: The Master/Slave apparatus is off by default. Turn it on by
           adding a slave and/or master statement to the configuration file.
           Also, check that the configured backend is master or slave
           capable.

   Q: My masters won't allow PowerDNS to access zones as it is using the
   wrong local IP address

           A: Mark Bergsma contributed the query-local-address setting to
           tell PowerDNS which local IP address to use.

   Q: I compiled PowerDNS myself and I see weird problems, especially on SMP

           A: There are known issues between gcc <3.2 and PowerDNS on Linux
           SMP systems. The exact cause is not known but moving to our
           precompiled version always fixes the problems. If you compile
           yourself, use a recent gcc!

   Q: PowerDNS does not answer queries on all my IP addresses and I've
   ignored the warning I got about that at startup

           A: Please don't ignore what PowerDNS says to you. Furthermore,
           read Chapter 15 about the local-address setting, and use it to
           specify which IP addresses PowerDNS should listen on.

   Q: Can I use a MySQL database with the Windows version of PowerDNS?

           A: You can. MySQL support is supplied through the ODBC backend,
           which is compiled into the main binary. So if you want to use
           MySQL you can change the pdns.conf file, which is located in the
           PowerDNS for Windows directory, to use the correct ODBC data
           sources. If you don't know how to use ODBC with MySQL:

              * Download MyODBC from http://www.mysql.com/

              * Install the MySQL ODBC driver.

           Then you can follow the instructions located in Chapter 3. But
           instead of selecting the Microsoft Access Driver you select the
           MySQL ODBC Driver and configure it to use your MySQL database.

           Note For other databases for which an ODBC driver is        
                available, the procedure is the same as this example.  

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

18.3. Backend developer HOWTO

   Writing backends without access to the full PDNS source means that you
   need to write code that can be loaded by PDNS at runtime. This in turn
   means that you need to use the same compiler that we do. For linux, this
   is currently GCC 3.0.4, although any 3.0.x compiler is probably fine. In
   tests, even 3.1 works.

   For FreeBSD we use GCC 2.95.2.

   Furthermore, your pdns_server executable must be dynamically linked. The
   default .rpm PDNS contains a static binary so you need to retrieve the
   dynamic rpm or the dynamic tar.gz or the Debian unstable ('Woody') deb.
   FreeBSD dynamic releases are forthcoming.

   Q: Will PDNS drivers work with other PDNS versions than they were compiled
   for?

           A: 'Probably'. We make no guarantees. Efforts have been made to
           keep the interface between the backend and PDNS as thin as
           possible. For example, a backend compiled with the 1.99.11 backend
           development kit works with 1.99.10. But don't count on it. We will
           notify when we think an incompatible API change has occured but
           you are best off recompiling your driver for each new PDNS
           release.

   Q: What is in that DNSPacket * pointer passed to lookup!

           A: For reasons outlined above, you should treat that pointer as
           opaque and only access it via the getRemote() functions made
           available and documented above. The DNSPacket class changes a lot
           and this level of indirection allows for greater changes to be
           made without changing the API to the backend coder.

   Q: How is the PowerDNS Open Source Backend Development Kit licensed?

           A: MIT X11, a very liberal license permitting basically
           everything.

   Q: Can I release the backend I wrote?

           A: Please do! If you tell us about it we will list you on our
           page.

   Q: Can I sell backends I wrote?

           A: You can. Again, if you tell us about them we will list your
           backend on the site. You can keep the source of your backend
           secret if you want, or you can share it with the world under any
           license of your chosing.

   Q: Will PowerDNS use my code in the PDNS distribution?

           A: If your license permits it and we like your backend, we sure
           will. If your license does not permit it but we like your backend
           anyway we may contact you.

   Q: My backend compiles but when I try to load it, it says 'undefined
   symbol: _Z13BackendMakersv'

           A: Your pdns_server binary is static and cannot load a backend
           driver at runtime. Get a dynamic version of pdns, or complain to
           pdns@powerdns.com if one isn't available. To check what kind of
           binary you have, execute 'file $(which pdns_server)'.

   Q: My backend compiles but when I try to load it, it says 'undefined
   symbol: BackendMakers__Fv'

           A: You compiled with the wrong GCC. Use GCC 3.x for Linux, 2.95.x
           for FreeBSD. You may want to change g++ to g++-3.0 in the
           Makefile, or change your path so that 3.x is used.

   Q: I downloaded a dynamic copy of pdns_server but it doesn't run, even
   without my backend

           A: Run 'ldd' on the pdns_server binary and figure out what
           libraries you are missing. Most likely you need to install gcc 3.0
           libraries, RedHat 7.1 and 7.2 have packages available, Debian
           installs these by default if you use the 'unstable deb' of PDNS.

   Q: What I want can't be done from a backend - I need the whole PDNS source

           A: If you require the source, please contact us
           (pdns@powerdns.com). All commercial licensees receive the source,
           for others we may grant exceptions.

   Q: What is this 'AhuException' I keep reading about?

           A: This name has historical reasons and has no significance.

   Q: I need a backend but I can't write it, can you help?

           A: Yes, we also do custom development. Contact us at
           pdns@powerdns.com.

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

18.4. About PowerDNS.COM BV, 'the company'

   As of 25 November 2002, the PowerDNS nameserver and its modules are open
   source. This has led to a lot of questions on the future of both PowerDNS,
   the company and the products. This FAQ attempts to address these
   questions.

   Q: Is PowerDNS 2.9 really open source? What license?

           A: PowerDNS 2.9 is licensed under the GNU General Public License
           version two, the same license that covers the Linux kernel.

   Q: Is the open source version crippled?

           A: It is not. Not a single byte has been omitted.

   Q: Is the nameserver abandoned?

           A: Far from it. In fact, we expect development to speed up now
           that we have joined the open source community.

   Q: Why is the nameserver now open source?

           A: In the current economic climate and also the way the Internet
           is built up right now, selling software is very hard. Most
           potential customers had never before bought a piece of software
           for their UNIX internet setup. Even though we know (from the
           recent survey) that nameserver operators love PowerDNS, their
           suggested price for it is in the $100 range.

           For us, it makes far more sense to open source PowerDNS than to
           ask $100 for it. It is expected that open sourcing PowerDNS will
           lead to far higher adoption rates. We hope that PowerDNS will soon
           be included in major Linux and UNIX distributions.

   Q: How does PowerDNS.COM BV expect to make money now that the nameserver
   is free?

           A: In fact, we don't expect to in the near future. We also don't
           have a lot of expenses, basically some hosting and a few domain
           names.

           However, we are available for consulting work, for example to help
           a large registrar or registry migrate to PowerDNS, or to help
           integrate our software in existing provisioning systems.

           Furthermore, non-GPL licenses are available for those needing to
           do closed source modifications, or for customers uncomfortable
           with the GPL. This is much like what MySQL AB is doing now.

           In fact, their strategy is a lot like ours in general.

   Q: Can I buy support contracts for PowerDNS?

           Sure, to do so, please contact us at <sales@powerdns.com>

   Q: Will you accept patches? We've added a feature

           Probably - in general, it is best to discuss your intentions and
           needs on the <pdns-dev@mailman.powerdns.com> (subscribe)
           mailinglist before doing the work. We may have suggestions or
           guidelines on how you should implement the feature.

   Q: PowerDNS doesn't work on my platform, will you port it?, Q: PowerDNS
   doesn't have feature I need, will you add it?

           Be sure to ask on the <pdns-dev@mailman.powerdns.com> (subscribe)
           mailinglist. You can even hire us to do work on PowerDNS if plain
           asking is not persuasive enough. This might be the case if we
           don't currently have time for your feature, but you need it
           quickly anyhow, and are not in a position to submit a patch
           implementing it.

   Q: Will PowerDNS Express be open sourced?

           Perhaps, we're not yet sure.

   Q: We are a Linux/Unix vendor, can we include PowerDNS?

           A: Please do. In fact, we'd be very happy to work with you to make
           this happen. Contact <ahu@ds9a.nl> if you have specific upstream
           needs.

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

                         Appendix A. Backends in detail

   This appendix lists several of the available backends in more detail

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

A.1. PipeBackend

   Table A-1. PipeBackend capabilities

   +-----------------------+
   | Native      | Yes     |
   |-------------+---------|
   | Master      | No      |
   |-------------+---------|
   | Slave       | No      |
   |-------------+---------|
   | Superslave  | No      |
   |-------------+---------|
   | Autoserial  | No      |
   |-------------+---------|
   | Case        | Depends |
   |-------------+---------|
   | Module name | pipe    |
   |-------------+---------|
   | Launch name | pipe    |
   +-----------------------+

   The PipeBackend allows for easy dynamic resolution based on a 'Coprocess'
   which can be written in any programming language that can read a question
   on standard input and answer on standard output.

   Note The Pipe Backend currently does not function under FreeBSD 4.x and    
        5.x, probably due to unfavorable interactions between its threading   
        implementation and the fork system call.                              
                                                                              
        Interestingly, the Linux PowerDNS binary running under the            
        Linuxulator on FreeBSD does work.                                     

   To configure, the following settings are available:

   pipe-command

           Command to launch as backend. Mandatory.

   pipe-timeout

           Number of milliseconds to wait for an answer from the backend. If
           this time is ever exceeded, the backend is declared dead and a new
           process is spawned. Available since 2.7.

   pipe-regex

           If set, only questions matching this regular expression are even
           sent to the backend. This makes sure that most of PowerDNS does
           not slow down if you you reploy a slow backend. A query for the A
           record of 'www.powerdns.com' would be presented to the regex as
           'www.powerdns.com;A'. A matching regex would be
           '^www.powerdns.com;.*$'.

           To match only ANY and A queries for www.powerdns.com, use
           '^www.powerdns.com;(A|ANY)$'. Available since 2.8.

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

  A.1.1. PipeBackend protocol

   Questions come in over a file descriptor, by default standard input.
   Answers are sent out over another file descriptor, standard output by
   default.

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

    A.1.1.1. Handshake

   PowerDNS sends out 'HELO\t1', indicating that it wants to speak the
   protocol as defined in this document, version 1. A PowerDNS CoProcess must
   then send out a banner, prefixed by 'OK\t', indicating it launched
   successfully. If it does not support the indicated version, it should
   respond with FAIL, but not exit. Suggested behaviour is to try and read a
   further line, and wait to be terminated.

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

    A.1.1.2. Questions

   Questions come in three forms and are prefixed by a tag indicating the
   kind:

   Q

           Regular queries

   AXFR

           List requests, which mean that an entire zone should be listed

   PING

           Check if the coprocess is functioning

   The question format:

 type    qname           qclass  qtype   id      ip-address

   Fields are tab separated, and terminated with a single \n. Type is the tag
   above, qname is the domain the question is about. qclass is always 'IN'
   currently, denoting an INternet question. qtype is the kind of information
   desired, the record type, like A, CNAME or AAAA. id can be specified to
   help your backend find an answer if the id is already known from an
   earlier query. You can ignore it. ip-address is the ip-address of the
   nameserver asking the question.

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

    A.1.1.3. Answers

   \r Each answer starts with a tag, possibly followed by a TAB and more data.

   DATA

           Indicating a successful line of DATA

   END

           Indicating the end of an answer - no further data

   FAIL

           Indicating a lookup failure. Also serves as 'END'. No further
           data.

   LOG

           For specifying things that should be logged. Can only be sent
           after a query and before an END line. After the tab, the message
           to be logged

   So letting it be known that there is no data consists if sending 'END'
   without anything else. The answer format:

 DATA    qname           qclass  qtype   ttl     id      content

   'content' is as specified in Chapter 17. A sample dialogue may look like
   this:

 Q       www.ds9a.nl     IN      CNAME   -1      213.244.168.210
 DATA    www.ds9a.nl     IN      CNAME   3600    1 ws1.ds9a.nl
 Q       ws1.ds9a.nl     IN      CNAME   -1      213.244.168.210
 END
 Q       wd1.ds9a.nl     IN      A       -1      213.244.168.210
 DATA    ws1.ds9a.nl     IN      A       3600    1       1.2.3.4
 DATA    ws1.ds9a.nl     IN      A       3600    1       1.2.3.5
 DATA    ws1.ds9a.nl     IN      A       3600    1       1.2.3.6
 END

   This would correspond to a remote webserver 213.244.168.210 wanting to
   resolve the IP address of www.ds9a.nl, and PowerDNS traversing the CNAMEs
   to find the IP addresses of ws1.ds9a.nl Another dialogue might be:

 Q       ds9a.nl         IN      SOA     -1      213.244.168.210
 DATA    ds9a.nl         IN      SOA     86400   1 ahu.ds9a.nl ...
 END
 AXFR    1
 DATA    ds9a.nl         IN      SOA     86400   1 ahu.ds9a.nl ...
 DATA    ds9a.nl         IN      NS      86400   1 ns1.ds9a.nl
 DATA    ds9a.nl         IN      NS      86400   1 ns2.ds9a.nl
 DATA    ns1.ds9a.nl     IN      A       86400   1 213.244.168.210
 DATA    ns2.ds9a.nl     IN      A       86400   1 63.123.33.135
 .
 .
 END

   This is a typical zone transfer.

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

    A.1.1.4. Sample perl backend

 #!/usr/bin/perl -w
 # sample PowerDNS Coprocess backend
 #

 use strict;


 $|=1;                                   # no buffering

 my $line=<>;
 chomp($line);

 unless($line eq "HELO\t1") {
         print "FAIL\n";
         print STDERR "Recevied '$line'\n";
         <>;
         exit;
 }
 print "OK       Sample backend firing up\n";    # print our banner

 while(<>)
 {
         print STDERR "$$ Received: $_";
         chomp();
         my @arr=split(/\t/);
         if(@arr<6) {
                 print "LOG      PowerDNS sent unparseable line\n";
                 print "FAIL\n";
                 next;
         }

         my ($type,$qname,$qclass,$qtype,$id,$ip)=split(/\t/);

         if(($qtype eq "A" || $qtype eq "ANY") && $qname eq "webserver.example.com") {
                 print STDERR "$$ Sent A records\n";
                 print "DATA     $qname  $qclass A       3600    -1      1.2.3.4\n";
                 print "DATA     $qname  $qclass A       3600    -1      1.2.3.5\n";
                 print "DATA     $qname  $qclass A       3600    -1      1.2.3.6\n";
         }
         elsif(($qtype eq "CNAME" || $qtype eq "ANY") && $qname eq "www.example.com") {
                 print STDERR "$$ Sent CNAME records\n";
                 print "DATA     $qname  $qclass CNAME   3600    -1      webserver.example.com\n";
         }
         elsif($qtype eq "MBOXFW") {
                 print STDERR "$$ Sent MBOXFW records\n";
                 print "DATA     $qname  $qclass MBOXFW  3600    -1      powerdns\@example.com\n";
         }


         print STDERR "$$ End of data\n";
         print "END\n";
 }
          

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

A.2. MySQL backend

   Warning This backend is deprecated! Use the Generic MySQL backend which is 
           better in all respects. It does support master/slave operation,    
           this backend does not. See Section A.5.                            
                                                                              
           So stop reading here unless you already have a database filled     
           with 'mysql' records.                                              

   Table A-2. MySQL backend capabilities

   +---------------------------+
   | Native      | Yes         |
   |-------------+-------------|
   | Master      | No          |
   |-------------+-------------|
   | Slave       | No          |
   |-------------+-------------|
   | Superslave  | No          |
   |-------------+-------------|
   | Autoserial  | Yes         |
   |-------------+-------------|
   | Case        | Insensitive |
   |-------------+-------------|
   | Module name | mysql       |
   |-------------+-------------|
   | Launch name | mysql       |
   +---------------------------+

   The MySQL Backend as present in PDNS is fixed - it requires a certain
   database schema to function. This schema corresponds to this create
   statement:

           CREATE TABLE records (
           id int(11) NOT NULL auto_increment,
           domain_id int(11) NOT NULL,
           name varchar(255) NOT NULL,
           type varchar(6) NOT NULL,
           content varchar(255) NOT NULL,
           ttl int(11) NOT NULL,
           prio int(11) default NULL,
           change_date int(11) default NULL,
           PRIMARY KEY (id),
           KEY name_index(name),
           KEY nametype_index(name,type),
           KEY domainid_index(domain_id)
           );
        

   Every domain should have a unique domain_id, which should remain identical
   for all records in a domain. Records with a domain_id that differs from
   that in the domain SOA record will not appear in a zone transfer.

   The change_date may optionally be updated to the time_t (the number of
   seconds since midnight UTC at the start of 1970), and is in that case used
   to auto calculate the SOA serial number in case that is unspecified.

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

  A.2.1. Configuration settings

   WARNING! Make sure that you can actually resolve the hostname of your
   database without accessing the database! It is advised to supply an IP
   address here to prevent chicken/egg problems!

   mysql-dbname

           Database name to connect to

   mysql-host

           Database host to connect to

   mysql-password

           Password to connect with

   mysql-socket

           MySQL socket to use for connecting

   mysql-table

           MySQL table name. Defaults to 'records'.

   mysql-user

           MySQL user to connect as

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

  A.2.2. Notes

   It has been observed that InnoDB tables outperform the default MyISAM
   tables by a large margin. Furthermore, the default number of backends (3)
   should be raised to 10 or 15 for busy servers.

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

A.3. Random Backend

   Table A-3. Random Backend capabilities

   +------------------------+
   | Native      | Yes      |
   |-------------+----------|
   | Master      | No       |
   |-------------+----------|
   | Slave       | No       |
   |-------------+----------|
   | Superslave  | No       |
   |-------------+----------|
   | Autoserial  | No       |
   |-------------+----------|
   | Case        | Depends  |
   |-------------+----------|
   | Module name | built in |
   |-------------+----------|
   | Lauch name  | random   |
   +------------------------+

   This is a very silly backend which is discussed in Section C.1 as a
   demonstration on how to write a PowerDNS backend.

   This backend knows about only one hostname, and only about its IP address
   at that. With every query, a new random IP address is generated.

   It only makes sense to load the random backend in combination with a
   regular backend. This can be done by prepending it to the launch=
   instruction, such as launch=random,gmysql.

   Variables:

   random-hostname

           Hostname for which to supply a random IP address.

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

A.4. MySQL PDNS backend

   Table A-4. MySQL backend capabilities

   +---------------------------+
   | Native      | Yes         |
   |-------------+-------------|
   | Master      | No          |
   |-------------+-------------|
   | Slave       | No          |
   |-------------+-------------|
   | Superslave  | No          |
   |-------------+-------------|
   | Autoserial  | Yes         |
   |-------------+-------------|
   | Case        | Insensitive |
   |-------------+-------------|
   | Module name | pdns        |
   |-------------+-------------|
   | Lauch name  | pdns        |
   +---------------------------+

   This is the driver that corresponds to the set of XML-RPC tools available
   from PowerDNS.

   The schema:

 CREATE TABLE MailForwards (
   Id int(10) unsigned NOT NULL auto_increment,
   ZoneId int(10) unsigned NOT NULL default '0',
   Name varchar(255) NOT NULL default '',
   Destination varchar(255) NOT NULL default '',
   Flags int(11) NOT NULL default '0',
   ChangeDate timestamp(14) NOT NULL,
   CreateDate timestamp(14) NOT NULL,
   Active tinyint(4) NOT NULL default '0',
   PRIMARY KEY  (Id),
   KEY NameIndex (Name),
   KEY ZoneIdIndex (ZoneId)
 );

 --
 -- Table structure for table 'Mailboxes'
 --

 CREATE TABLE Mailboxes (
   Id int(10) unsigned NOT NULL auto_increment,
   ZoneId int(10) unsigned NOT NULL default '0',
   Name varchar(255) NOT NULL default '',
   Password varchar(255) NOT NULL default '',
   Quota int(10) unsigned NOT NULL default '0',
   Flags int(11) NOT NULL default '0',
   ChangeDate timestamp(14) NOT NULL,
   CreateDate timestamp(14) NOT NULL,
   Active tinyint(4) NOT NULL default '0',
   PRIMARY KEY  (Id),
   UNIQUE KEY Name (Name),
   KEY ZoneIdIndex (ZoneId),
   KEY NameIndex (Name)
 );

 --
 -- Table structure for table 'Records'
 --

 CREATE TABLE Records (
   Id int(10) unsigned NOT NULL auto_increment,
   ZoneId int(10) unsigned NOT NULL default '0',
   Name varchar(255) NOT NULL default '',
   Type varchar(8) NOT NULL default '',
   Content varchar(255) NOT NULL default '',
   TimeToLive int(11) NOT NULL default '60',
   Priority int(11) NOT NULL default '0',
   Flags int(11) NOT NULL default '0',
   ChangeDate timestamp(14) NOT NULL,
   CreateDate timestamp(14) NOT NULL,
   Active tinyint(4) NOT NULL default '0',
   PRIMARY KEY  (Id),
   KEY NameIndex (Name)
 );

 --
 -- Table structure for table 'WebForwards'
 --

 CREATE TABLE WebForwards (
   Id int(10) unsigned NOT NULL auto_increment,
   ZoneId int(10) unsigned NOT NULL default '0',
   Name varchar(255) NOT NULL default '',
   Destination varchar(255) NOT NULL default '',
   Type varchar(7) NOT NULL default 'NORMAL',
   Title varchar(255) NOT NULL default '',
   Description varchar(255) NOT NULL default '',
   Keywords varchar(255) NOT NULL default '',
   FavIcon varchar(255) NOT NULL default '',
   Flags int(11) NOT NULL default '0',
   ChangeDate timestamp(14) NOT NULL,
   CreateDate timestamp(14) NOT NULL,
   Active tinyint(4) NOT NULL default '0',
   PRIMARY KEY  (Id),
   KEY NameIndex (Name),
   KEY ZoneIdIndex (ZoneId)
 );

 --
 -- Table structure for table 'Zones'
 --

 CREATE TABLE Zones (
   Id int(10) unsigned NOT NULL auto_increment,
   Name varchar(255) NOT NULL default '',
   Hostmaster varchar(255) NOT NULL default '',
   Serial int(10) unsigned NOT NULL default '0',
   AutoSerial tinyint(4) NOT NULL default '0',
   Flags int(11) NOT NULL default '0',
   ChangeDate timestamp(14) NOT NULL,
   CreateDate timestamp(14) NOT NULL,
   Active tinyint(4) NOT NULL default '0',
   TimeToLive int(11) NOT NULL default '0',
   OwnerId varchar(255) NOT NULL default '',
   PRIMARY KEY  (Id),
   UNIQUE KEY Name (Name),
   KEY NameIndex (Name)
 );

        

   It takes a number of parameters:

   pdns-dbname

           Database name to connect to

   pdns-host

           Database host to connect to

   pdns-password

           Password to connect with

   pdns-socket

           MySQL socket to use for connecting

   pdns-user

           MySQL user to connect as

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

  A.4.1. Notes

   It has been observed that InnoDB tables outperform the default MyISAM
   tables by a large margin. Furthermore, the default number of backends (3)
   should be raised to 10 or 15 for busy servers.

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

A.5. Generic MySQL and PgSQL backends

   Table A-5. Generic PgSQL and MySQL backend capabilities

   +---------------------------------------------------------------+
   | Native              | Yes - but PostgreSQL does not replicate |
   |---------------------+-----------------------------------------|
   | Master              | Yes                                     |
   |---------------------+-----------------------------------------|
   | Slave               | Yes                                     |
   |---------------------+-----------------------------------------|
   | Superslave          | Yes                                     |
   |---------------------+-----------------------------------------|
   | Autoserial          | NO                                      |
   |---------------------+-----------------------------------------|
   | Case                | All lower                               |
   |---------------------+-----------------------------------------|
   | Module name < 2.9.3 | pgmysql                                 |
   |---------------------+-----------------------------------------|
   | Module name > 2.9.2 | gmysql and gpgsql                       |
   |---------------------+-----------------------------------------|
   | Lauch name          | gmysql and gpgsql2 and gpgsql           |
   +---------------------------------------------------------------+

   PostgreSQL and MySQL backend with easily configurable SQL statements,
   allowing you to graft PDNS on any PostgreSQL or MySQL database of your
   choosing. Because all database schemas will be different, a generic
   backend is needed to cover all needs.

   The template queries are expanded using the C function 'snprintf' which
   implies that substitutions are performed on the basis of %-place holders.
   To place a a % in a query which will not be substituted, use %%. Make sure
   to fill out the search key, often called 'name' in lower case!

   There are in fact two backends, one for PostgreSQL and one for MySQL but
   they accept the same settings and use almost exactly the same database
   schema.

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

  A.5.1. MySQL specifics

   Warning If using MySQL with 'slave' support enabled in PowerDNS you must   
           run MySQL with a table engine that supports transactions.          

   In practice, great results are achieved with the 'InnoDB' tables. PowerDNS
   will silently function with non-transaction aware MySQLs but at one point
   this is going to harm your database, for example when an incoming zone
   transfer fails.

   The default setup conforms to the following schema:

 create table domains (
  id              INT auto_increment,
  name            VARCHAR(255) NOT NULL,
  master          VARCHAR(20) DEFAULT NULL,
  last_check      INT DEFAULT NULL,
  type            VARCHAR(6) NOT NULL,
  notified_serial INT DEFAULT NULL,
  account         VARCHAR(40) DEFAULT NULL,
  primary key (id)
 )type=InnoDB;

 CREATE UNIQUE INDEX name_index ON domains(name);

 CREATE TABLE records (
   id              INT auto_increment,
   domain_id       INT DEFAULT NULL,
   name            VARCHAR(255) DEFAULT NULL,
   type            VARCHAR(6) DEFAULT NULL,
   content         VARCHAR(255) DEFAULT NULL,
   ttl             INT DEFAULT NULL,
   prio            INT DEFAULT NULL,
   change_date     INT DEFAULT NULL,
   primary key(id)
 )type=InnoDB;

 CREATE INDEX rec_name_index ON records(name);
 CREATE INDEX nametype_index ON records(name,type);
 CREATE INDEX domain_id ON records(domain_id);

 create table supermasters (
   ip VARCHAR(25) NOT NULL,
   nameserver VARCHAR(255) NOT NULL,
   account VARCHAR(40) DEFAULT NULL
 );

 GRANT SELECT ON supermasters TO pdns;
 GRANT ALL ON domains TO pdns;
 GRANT ALL ON records TO pdns;
          

   This schema contains all elements needed for master, slave and superslave
   operation. Depending on which features will be used, the 'GRANT'
   statements can be trimmed to make sure PDNS cannot subvert the contents of
   your database.

   Zone2sql with the --gmysql flag also assumes this layout is in place.

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

  A.5.2. PostgresSQL specifics

   The default setup conforms to the following schema, which you should add
   to a PostgreSQL database.

 create table domains (
  id              SERIAL PRIMARY KEY,
  name            VARCHAR(255) NOT NULL,
  master          VARCHAR(20) DEFAULT NULL,
  last_check      INT DEFAULT NULL,
  type            VARCHAR(6) NOT NULL,
  notified_serial INT DEFAULT NULL,
  account         VARCHAR(40) DEFAULT NULL
 );
 CREATE UNIQUE INDEX name_index ON domains(name);
  
 CREATE TABLE records (
         id              SERIAL PRIMARY KEY,
         domain_id       INT DEFAULT NULL,
         name            VARCHAR(255) DEFAULT NULL,
         type            VARCHAR(6) DEFAULT NULL,
         content         VARCHAR(255) DEFAULT NULL,
         ttl             INT DEFAULT NULL,
         prio            INT DEFAULT NULL,
         change_date     INT DEFAULT NULL,
         CONSTRAINT domain_exists
         FOREIGN KEY(domain_id) REFERENCES domains(id)
         ON DELETE CASCADE
 );

 CREATE INDEX rec_name_index ON records(name);
 CREATE INDEX nametype_index ON records(name,type);
 CREATE INDEX domain_id ON records(domain_id);

 create table supermasters (
           ip VARCHAR(25) NOT NULL,
           nameserver VARCHAR(255) NOT NULL,
           account VARCHAR(40) DEFAULT NULL
 );

 GRANT SELECT ON supermasters TO pdns;
 GRANT ALL ON domains TO pdns;
 GRANT ALL ON domains_id_seq TO pdns;
 GRANT ALL ON records TO pdns;
 GRANT ALL ON records_id_seq TO pdns;
        

   This schema contains all elements needed for master, slave and superslave
   operation. Depending on which features will be used, the 'GRANT'
   statements can be trimmed to make sure PDNS cannot subvert the contents of
   your database.

   Zone2sql with the --gpgsql flag also assumes this layout is in place.

   With PostgreSQL, you may have to run 'createdb powerdns' first and then
   connect to that database with 'psql powerdns', and feed it the schema
   above.

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

  A.5.3. Basic functionality

   4 queries are needed for regular lookups, 4 for 'fancy records' which are
   disabled by default and 1 is needed for zone transfers.

   The 4+4 regular queries must return the following 6 fields, in this exact
   order:

   content

           This is the 'right hand side' of a DNS record. For an A record,
           this is the IP address for example.

   ttl

           TTL of this record, in seconds. Must be a real value, no checking
           is performed.

   prio

           For MX records, this should be the priority of the mail exchanger
           specified.

   qtype

           The ASCII representation of the qtype of this record. Examples are
           'A', 'MX', 'SOA', 'AAAA'. Make sure that this field returns an
           exact answer - PDNS won't recognise 'A ' as 'A'. This can be
           achieved by using a VARCHAR instead of a CHAR.

   domain_id

           Each domain must have a unique domain_id. No two domains may share
           a domain_id, all records in a domain should have the same. A
           number.

   name

           Actual name of a record. Must not end in a '.' and be fully
           qualified - it is not relative to the name of the domain!

   Please note that the names of the fields are not relevant, but the order
   is!

   As said earlier, there are 8 SQL queries for regular lookups. To configure
   them, set 'gmysql-basic-query' or 'gpgsql-basic-query', depending on your
   choice of backend. If so called 'MBOXFW' fancy records are not used, four
   queries remain:

   basic-query

           Default: select content,ttl,prio,type,domain_id,name from records
           where qtype='%s' and name='%s' This is the most used query, needed
           for doing 1:1 lookups of qtype/name values. First %s is replaced
           by the ASCII representation of the qtype of the question, the
           second by the name.

   id-query

           Default: select content,ttl,prio,type,domain_id,name from records
           where qtype='%s' and name='%s' and domain_id=%d Used for doing
           lookups within a domain. First %s is replaced by the qtype, the %d
           which should appear after the %s by the numeric domain_id.

   any-query

           For doing ANY queries. Also used internally. Default: select
           content,ttl,prio,type,domain_id,name from records where name='%s'
           The %s is replaced by the qname of the question.

   any-id-query

           For doing ANY queries within a domain. Also used internally.
           Default: select content,ttl,prio,type,domain_id,name from records
           where name='%s' and domain_id=%d The %s is replaced by the name of
           the domain, the %d by the numerical domain id.

   The last query is for listing the entire contents of a zone. This is
   needed when performing a zone transfer, but sometimes also internally:

   list-query

           To list an entire zone. Default: select
           content,ttl,prio,type,domain_id,name from records where
           domain_id=%d

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

  A.5.4. Master/slave queries

   Most installations will have zero need to change the following settings,
   but should the need arise, here they are:

   master-zone-query

           Called to determine the master of a zone. Default: select master
           from domains where name='%s' and type='SLAVE'

   info-zone-query

           Called to retrieve (nearly) all information for a domain: Default:
           select id,name,master,last_check,notified_serial,type from domains
           where name='%s'

   info-all-slaves-query

           Called to retrieve all slave domains Default: select
           id,name,master,last_check,type from domains where type='SLAVE'

   supermaster-query

           Called to determine if a certain host is a supermaster for a
           certain domain name. Default: select account from supermasters
           where ip='%s' and nameserver='%s'");

   insert-slave-query

           Called to add a domain as slave after a supermaster notification.
           Default: insert into domains (type,name,master,account)
           values('SLAVE','%s','%s','%s')

   insert-record-query

           Called during incoming AXFR. Default: insert into records
           (content,ttl,prio,type,domain_id,name) values
           ('%s',%d,%d,'%s',%d,'%s')

   update-serial-query

           Called to update the last notified serial of a master domain.
           Default: update domains set notified_serial=%d where id=%d

   update-lastcheck-query

           Called to update the last time a slave domain was checked for
           freshness. Default: update domains set notified_serial=%d where
           id=%d

   info-all-master-query

           Called to get data on all domains for which the server is master.
           Default: select id,name,master,last_check,notified_serial,type
           from domains where type='MASTER'

   delete-zone-query

           Called to delete all records of a zone. Used before an incoming
           AXFR. Default: delete from records where domain_id=%d

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

  A.5.5. Fancy records

   If PDNS is used with so called 'Fancy Records', the 'MBOXFW' record exists
   which specifies an email address forwarding instruction, wildcard queries
   are sometimes needed. This is not enabled by default. A wildcard query is
   an internal concept - it has no relation to *.domain-type lookups. You can
   safely leave these queries blank.

   wildcard-query

           Can be left blank. See above for an explanation. Default: select
           content,ttl,prio,type,domain_id,name from records where qtype='%s'
           and name like '%s'

   wildcard-id-query

           Can be left blank. See above for an explanation. Default: select
           content,ttl,prio,type,domain_id,name from records where qtype='%s'
           and name like '%s' and domain_id=%d Used for doing lookups within
           a domain.

   wildcard-any-query

           For doing wildcard ANY queries. Default: select
           content,ttl,prio,type,domain_id,name from records where name like
           '%s'

   wildcard-any-id-query

           For doing wildcard ANY queries within a domain. Default: select
           content,ttl,prio,type,domain_id,name from records where name like
           '%s' and domain_id=%d

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

  A.5.6. Settings and specifying queries

   The queries above are specified in pdns.conf. For example, the basic-query
   would appear as:

             gpgsql-basic-query=select content,ttl,prio,type,domain_id,name from records where qtype='%s' and name='%s'
          

   When using the Generic PostgreSQL backend, they appear as above. When
   using the generic MySQL backend, change the "gpgsql-" prefix to "gmysql-".

   Queries can span multiple lines, like this:

             gpgsql-basic-query=select content,ttl,prio,type,domain_id,name from records \
             where qtype='%s' and name='%s'
          

   Do not wrap statements in quotes as this will not work. Besides the query
   related settings, the following configuration options are available:

   gpgsql-dbname

           Database name to connect to

   gpgsql-host

           Database host to connect to. WARNING: When specified as a hostname
           a chicken/egg situation might arise where the database is needed
           to resolve the IP address of the database. It is best to supply an
           IP address of the database here.

   gmysql-socket (only for MySQL!)

           Filename where the MySQL connection socket resides. Often
           /tmp/mysql.sock or /var/run/mysqld/mysqld.sock.

   gpgsql-password

           Password to connect with

   gpgsql-user

           PgSQL user to connect as

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

  A.5.7. Native operation

   For native operation, either drop the FOREIGN KEY on the domain_id field,
   or (recommended), make sure the domains table is filled properly. To add a
   domain, issue the following:

             insert into domains (name,type) values ('powerdns.com','NATIVE');
          

   The records table can now be filled by with the domain_id set to the id of
   the domains table row just inserted.

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

  A.5.8. Slave operation

   The PostgreSQL backend is fully slave capable. To become a slave of the
   'powerdns.com' domain, execute this:

             insert into domains (name,master,type) values ('powerdns.com','213.244.168.217','SLAVE');
          

   And wait a while for PDNS to pick up the addition - which happens within
   one minute. There is no need to inform PDNS that a new domain was added.
   Typical output is:

             Apr 09 13:34:29 All slave domains are fresh
             Apr 09 13:35:29 1 slave domain needs checking
             Apr 09 13:35:29 Domain powerdns.com is stale, master serial 1, our serial 0
             Apr 09 13:35:30 [gPgSQLBackend] Connected to database
             Apr 09 13:35:30 AXFR started for 'powerdns.com'
             Apr 09 13:35:30 AXFR done for 'powerdns.com'
             Apr 09 13:35:30 [gPgSQLBackend] Closing connection
          

   From now on, PDNS is authoritative for the 'powerdns.com' zone and will
   respond accordingly for queries within that zone.

   Periodically, PDNS schedules checks to see if domains are still fresh. The
   default slave-cycle-interval is 60 seconds, large installations may need
   to raise this value. Once a domain has been checked, it will not be
   checked before its SOA refresh timer has expired. Domains whose status is
   unknown get checked every 60 seconds by default.

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

  A.5.9. Superslave operation

   To configure a supermaster with IP address 10.0.0.11 which lists this
   installation as 'autoslave.powerdns.com', issue the following:

             insert into supermasters ('10.0.0.11','autoslave.powerdns.com','internal');
          

   From now on, valid notifies from 10.0.0.11 that list a NS record
   containing 'autoslave.powerdns.com' will lead to the provisioning of a
   slave domain under the account 'internal'. See Section 13.2.1 for details.

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

  A.5.10. Master operation

   The PostgreSQL backend is fully master capable with automatic discovery of
   serial changes. Raising the serial number of a domain suffices to trigger
   PDNS to send out notifications. To configure a domain for master operation
   instead of the default native replication, issue:

             insert into domains (name,type) values ('powerdns.com','MASTER');
          

   Make sure that the assigned id in the domains table matches the domain_id
   field in the records table!

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

A.6. Generic Oracle backend

   Table A-6. Oracle backend capabilities

   +----------------------+
   | Native      | Yes    |
   |-------------+--------|
   | Master      | No     |
   |-------------+--------|
   | Slave       | No     |
   |-------------+--------|
   | Superslave  | No     |
   |-------------+--------|
   | Autoserial  | Yes    |
   |-------------+--------|
   | Module name | oracle |
   |-------------+--------|
   | Launch name | oracle |
   +----------------------+

   Oracle backend with easily configurable SQL statements, allowing you to
   graft PDNS on any Oracle database of your choosing.

   PowerDNS is currently ascertaining if this backend can be distributed in
   binary form without violating Oracle licensing. In the meantime, the
   source code to the Oracle backend is available in the pdns distribution.

   The following configuration settings are available:

   oracle-debug-queries

           Output all queries to disk for debugging purposes.

   oracle-time-queries

           Output all queries to disk for timing purposes.

   oracle-uppercase-database

           Change all domain names to uppercase before querying database.

   oracle-database

           Oracle database name to connect to.

   oracle-home

           PDNS can set the ORACLE_HOME environment variable from within the
           executable, allowing execution of the daemon from init.d scripts
           where ORACLE_HOME may not yet be set.

   oracle-sid

           PDNS can set the ORACLE_SID environment variable from within the
           executable, allowing execution of the daemon from init.d scripts
           where ORACLE_SID may not yet be set.

   oracle-username

           Oracle username to connect as.

   oracle-password

           Oracle password to connect with.

   The generic Oracle backend can be configured to use user-specified
   queries. The following are the default queries and their names:

   oracle-forward-query

           select content, TimeToLive, Priority, type, ZoneId,
           nvl(ChangeDate,0) from Records where name = :name and type = :type

   oracle-forward-query-by-zone

           select content, TimeToLive, Priority, type, ZoneId,
           nvl(ChangeDate,0) from records where name = :name and type = :type
           and ZoneId = :id

   oracle-forward-any-query

           select content, TimeToLive, Priority, type, ZoneId,
           nvl(ChangeDate,0) from records where name = :name

   oracle-list-query

           select content, TimeToLive, Priority, type, ZoneId,
           nvl(ChangeDate, 0), name from records where ZoneId = :id

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

  A.6.1. Setting up Oracle for use with PowerDNS

   To setup a database that corresponds to these default queries, issue the
   following as Oracle user sys:

             create user powerdns identified by YOURPASSWORD;
             grant connect to powerdns;
            
             create tablespace powerdns datafile '/opt/oracle/oradata/oracle/powerdns.dbf'
               size 256M extent management local autoallocate;
            
             alter user powerdns quota unlimited on powerdns;
          

   As user 'powerdns' continue with:

 create table Domains (
  ID              number(11) NOT NULL,
  NAME            VARCHAR(255) NOT NULL,
  MASTER          VARCHAR(20) DEFAULT NULL,
  LAST_CHECK      INT DEFAULT NULL,
  TYPE            VARCHAR(6) NOT NULL,
  NOTIFIED_SERIAL INT DEFAULT NULL,
  ACCOUNT         VARCHAR(40) DEFAULT NULL,
  primary key (ID)
 )tablespace POWERDNS;

 create index DOMAINS$NAME on Domains (NAME) tablespace POWERDNS;
 create sequence DOMAINS_ID_SEQUENCE;

 create table Records
 (
   ID                number(11) NOT NULL,
   ZoneID            number(11) default NULL REFERENCES Domains(ID) ON DELETE CASCADE,
   NAME              varchar2(255) default NULL,
   TYPE              varchar2(6) default NULL, 
   CONTENT           varchar2(255) default NULL,
   TimeToLive        number(11) default NULL,  
   Priority          number(11) default NULL,
   CreateDate        number(11) default NULL,
   ChangeDate        number(11) default NULL,
   primary key (ID)
 )tablespace POWERDNS;

 create index RECORDS$NAME on RECORDS (NAME) tablespace POWERDNS;
 create sequence RECORDS_ID_SEQUENCE;
          

   To insert records, either use zone2sql with the --oracle setting, or
   execute sql along the lines of:

 insert into domains (id,name,type) values (domains_id_sequence.nextval,'netherlabs.nl','NATIVE');
 insert into Records (id,ZoneId, name,type,content,TimeToLive,Priority) select RECORDS_ID_SEQUENCE.nextval,id ,'netherlabs.nl', 'SOA', 'ahu.casema.net. hostmaster.ds9a.nl. 2000081401 28800 7200 604800 86400', 3600, 0 from Domains where name='netherlabs.nl';
 insert into Records (id,ZoneId, name,type,content,TimeToLive,Priority) select RECORDS_ID_SEQUENCE.nextval,id ,'netherlabs.nl', 'NS', 'ahu.casema.net', 3600, 0 from Domains where name='netherlabs.nl';
 insert into Records (id,ZoneId, name,type,content,TimeToLive,Priority) select RECORDS_ID_SEQUENCE.nextval,id ,'netherlabs.nl', 'NS', 'ns1.pine.nl', 3600, 0 from Domains where name='netherlabs.nl';
 insert into Records (id,ZoneId, name,type,content,TimeToLive,Priority) select RECORDS_ID_SEQUENCE.nextval,id ,'netherlabs.nl', 'NS', 'ns2.pine.nl', 3600, 0 from Domains where name='netherlabs.nl';
 insert into Records (id,ZoneId, name,type,content,TimeToLive,Priority) select RECORDS_ID_SEQUENCE.nextval,id ,'netherlabs.nl', 'A', '213.244.168.210', 3600, 0 from Domains where name='netherlabs.nl';
 insert into Records (id,ZoneId, name,type,content,TimeToLive,Priority) select RECORDS_ID_SEQUENCE.nextval,id ,'netherlabs.nl', 'MX', 'outpost.ds9a.nl', 3600, 10 from Domains where name='netherlabs.nl';

          

   For performance reasons it is best to specify --transactions too!

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

A.7. Generic SQLite backend

   Table A-7. Generic SQLite backend capabilities

   +-----------------------+
   | Native      | Yes     |
   |-------------+---------|
   | Master      | Yes     |
   |-------------+---------|
   | Slave       | Yes     |
   |-------------+---------|
   | Superslave  | Yes     |
   |-------------+---------|
   | Module name | gsqlite |
   |-------------+---------|
   | Launch name | gsqlite |
   +-----------------------+

   This backend retrieves all data from a SQLite database, which is a RDBMS
   that's embedded into the application itself, so you won't need to be
   running a seperate server process. It also reduces overhead, and
   simplifies installation. At http://www.sqlite.org you can find more
   information about SQLite.

   As this is a generic backend, built on top of the gSql framework, you can
   specify all queries as documented in Generic MySQL and PgSQL backends.

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

  A.7.1. Compiling the SQLite backend

   Before you can begin compiling PowerDNS with the SQLite backend you need
   to have the SQLite utility and library installed on your system. You can
   download these from http://www.sqlite.org/download.html, or you can use
   packages (if your distribution provides those).

   When you've installed the library you can use: ./configure
   --with-modules="gsqlite" to configure PowerDNS to use the SQLite backend.
   Compilation can then proceed as usual.

   SQLite is included in most PowerDNS binary releases.

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

  A.7.2. Setting up the database

   Before you can use this backend you first have to set it up and fill it
   with data. The default setup conforms to the following schema:

             create table domains (
               id                INTEGER PRIMARY KEY,
               name              VARCHAR(255) NOT NULL,
               master            VARCHAR(20) DEFAULT NULL,
               last_check        INTEGER DEFAULT NULL,
               type              VARCHAR(6) NOT NULL,
               notified_serial   INTEGER DEFAULT NULL,
               account           VARCHAR(40) DEFAULT NULL
             );

             CREATE UNIQUE INDEX name_index ON domains(name);

             CREATE TABLE records (
               id              INTEGER PRIMARY KEY,
               domain_id       INTEGER DEFAULT NULL,
               name            VARCHAR(255) DEFAULT NULL,
               type            VARCHAR(6) DEFAULT NULL,
               content         VARCHAR(255) DEFAULT NULL,
               ttl             INTEGER DEFAULT NULL,
               prio            INTEGER DEFAULT NULL,
               change_date     INTEGER DEFAULT NULL
             );
              
             CREATE INDEX rec_name_index ON records(name);
             CREATE INDEX nametype_index ON records(name,type);
             CREATE INDEX domain_id ON records(domain_id);

             create table supermasters (
               ip          VARCHAR(25) NOT NULL,
               nameserver  VARCHAR(255) NOT NULL,
               account     VARCHAR(40) DEFAULT NULL
             );
                

   This schema contains all elements needed for master, slave and superslave
   operation.

   After you have created the database you probably want to fill it with
   data. If you have a BIND zonefile it's as easy as: zone2sql
   --zone=myzonefile --gmysql | sqlite powerdns.sqlite, but you can also use
   AXFR (or insert data manually if you have too much time ;)).

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

  A.7.3. Using the SQLite backend

   The last thing you need to do is telling PowerDNS to use the SQLite
   backend.

             # in pdns.conf
             launch=gsqlite
             gsqlite-database=<path to your SQLite database>
          

   Then you can start PowerDNS and it should notify you that a connection to
   the database was made.

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

A.8. DB2 backend

   Table A-8. DB2 backend capabilities

   +-------------------+
   | Native      | Yes |
   |-------------+-----|
   | Master      | No  |
   |-------------+-----|
   | Slave       | No  |
   |-------------+-----|
   | Superslave  | No  |
   |-------------+-----|
   | Autoserial  | Yes |
   |-------------+-----|
   | Module name | db2 |
   |-------------+-----|
   | Launch name | db2 |
   +-------------------+

   PowerDNS is currently ascertaining if this backend can be distributed in
   binary form without violating IBM DB2 licensing.

   The DB2 backend executes the following queries:

   Forward Query

           select Content, TimeToLive, Priority, Type, ZoneId, 0 as
           ChangeDate, Name from Records where Name = ? and type = ?

   Forward By Zone Query

           select Content, TimeToLive, Priority, Type, ZoneId, 0 as
           ChangeDate, Name from Records where Name = ? and Type = ? and
           ZoneId = ?

   Forward Any Query

           select Content, TimeToLive, Priority, Type, ZoneId, 0 as
           ChangeDate, Name from Records where Name = ?

   List Query

           select Content, TimeToLive, Priority, Type, ZoneId, 0 as
           ChangeDate, Name from Records where ZoneId = ?

   Configuration settings:

   db2-server

           Server name to connect to. Defaults to 'powerdns'. Make sure that
           your nameserver is not needed to resolve an IP address needed to
           connect as this might lead to a chicken/egg situation.

   db2-user

           Username to connect as. Defaults to 'powerdns'.

   db2-password

           Password to connect with. Defaults to 'powerdns'.

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

A.9. Bind zone file backend

   Table A-9. Bind zone file backend capabilities

   +-------------------------------+
   | Native      | Yes             |
   |-------------+-----------------|
   | Master      | Yes             |
   |-------------+-----------------|
   | Slave       | Yes             |
   |-------------+-----------------|
   | Superslave  | No              |
   |-------------+-----------------|
   | Autoserial  | No              |
   |-------------+-----------------|
   | Module name | none (built in) |
   |-------------+-----------------|
   | Launch      | bind            |
   +-------------------------------+

   Note There is also the Bind2backend which works exactly like this backend  
        but is far more experimental. In the future it supplant the           
        bindbackend.                                                          

   The BindBackend started life as a demonstration of the versatility of PDNS
   but quickly gained in importance when there appeared to be demand for a
   Bind 'workalike'.

   The BindBackend parses a Bind-style named.conf and extracts information
   about zones from it. It makes no attempt to honour other configuration
   flags, which you should configure (when available) using the PDNS native
   configuration.

   --help=bind

           Outputs all known parameters related to the bindbackend

   bind-example-zones

           Loads the 'example.com' zone which can be queried to determine if
           PowerDNS is functioning without configuring database backends.

   bind-config=

           Location of the Bind configuration file to parse.

   bind-check-interval=

           How often to check for zone changes. See 'Operation' section.

   bind-enable-huffman

           Enable Huffman compression on zone data. Currently saves around
           20% of memory actually used, but slows down operation somewhat.

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

  A.9.1. Operation

   On launch, the BindBackend first parses the named.conf to determine which
   zones need to be loaded. These will then be parsed and made available for
   serving, as they are parsed. So a named.conf with 100.000 zones may take
   20 seconds to load, but after 10 seconds, 50.000 zones will already be
   available. While a domain is being loaded, it is not yet available, to
   prevent incomplete answers.

   Reloading is currently done only when a request for a zone comes in, and
   then only after bind-check-interval seconds have passed after the last
   check. If a change occurred, access to the zone is disabled, the file is
   reloaded, access is restored, and the question is answered. For regular
   zones, reloading is fast enough to answer the question which lead to the
   reload within the DNS timeout.

   If bind-check-interval is specified as zero, no checks will be performed
   until the pdns_control reload is given.

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

  A.9.2. Pdns_control commands

   bind-domain-status domain [domain]

           Output status of domain or domains. Can be one of 'seen in
           named.conf, not parsed', 'parsed successfully at <time;>' or
           'error parsing at line ... at <time>'.

   bind-list-rejects

           Lists all zones that have problems, and what those problems are.

   bind-reload-now domain

           Reloads a zone from disk NOW, reporting back results.

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

  A.9.3. Performance

   The BindBackend does not benefit from the packet cache as it is fast
   enough on its own. Furthermore, on most systems, there will be no benefit
   in using multiple CPUs for the packetcache, so a noticeable speedup can be
   attained by specifying distributor-threads=1 in pdns.conf.

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

  A.9.4. Master/slave configuration

    A.9.4.1. Master

   Works as expected. At startup, no notification storm is performed as this
   is generally not useful. Perhaps in the future the Bind Backend will
   attempt to store zone metadata in the zone, allowing it to determine if a
   zone has changed its serial since the last time notifications were sent
   out.

   Changes which are discovered when reloading zones do lead to notifications
   however.

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

    A.9.4.2. Slave

   Also works as expected. The Bind backend expects to be able to write to a
   directory where a slave domain lives. The incoming zone is stored as
   'zonename.RANDOM' and atomically renamed if it is retrieved successfully,
   and parsed only then.

   In the future, this may be improved so the old zone remains available
   should parsing fail.

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

  A.9.5. Commands

   pdns_control offers commands to communicate instructions to PowerDNS.
   These are detailed here.

   rediscover

           Reread the bind configuration file (named.conf). If parsing fails,
           the old configuration remains in force and pdns_control reports
           the error. Any newly discovered domains are read, discarded
           domains are removed from memory.

           Note Except that with 2.9.3, they are not removed from      
                memory.                                                

   reload

           All zones with a changed timestamp are reloaded at the next
           incoming query for them.

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

A.10. ODBC backend

   Table A-10. ODBC backend capabilities

   +---------------------------------+
   | Native     | Yes                |
   |------------+--------------------|
   | Master     | Yes (experimental) |
   |------------+--------------------|
   | Slave      | Yes (experimental) |
   |------------+--------------------|
   | Superslave | No                 |
   |------------+--------------------|
   | Autoserial | Yes                |
   +---------------------------------+

   The ODBC backend can retrieve zone information from any source that has a
   ODBC driver available.

   Note This backend is only available on PowerDNS for Windows.               

   The ODBC backend needs data in a fixed schema which is the same as the
   data needed by the MySQL backend. The create statement will resemble this:

           CREATE TABLE records (
           id int(11) NOT NULL auto_increment,
           domain_id int(11) default NULL,
           name varchar(255) default NULL,
           type varchar(6) default NULL,
           content varchar(255) default NULL,
           ttl int(11) default NULL,
           prio int(11) default NULL,
           change_date int(11) default NULL,
           PRIMARY KEY (id),
           KEY name_index(name),
           KEY nametype_index(name,type),
           KEY domainid_index(domain_id)
           );
        

   To use the ODBC backend an ODBC source has to be created, to do this see
   the section Installing PowerDNS on Microsoft Windows, Chapter 3.

   The following configuration settings are available:

   odbc-datasource

           Specifies the name of the data source to use.

   odbc-user

           Specifies the username that has to be used to log into the
           datasource.

   odbc-pass

           Specifies the user's password.

   odbc-table

           Specifies the name of the table containing the zone information.

   The ODBC backend has been tested with Microsoft Access, MySQL (via MyODBC)
   and Microsoft SQLServer. As the SQL statements used are very basic, it is
   expected to work with many ODBC drivers.

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

A.11. XDB Backend

   Special purpose backend for grandiose performance. Can talk to Tridge's
   Trivial Database, or to regular *db tables on disk. Currently only
   sparsely documented. Very useful if you need to do >50.000 queries/second,
   which we actually measured on the .ORG zone.

   More documentation will follow.

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

A.12. LDAP backend

   The main author for this module is Norbert Sendetzky who also has his own
   PowerDNS-LDAP page.

   Table A-11. LDAP backend capabilities

   +------------------+
   | Native     | Yes |
   |------------+-----|
   | Master     | No  |
   |------------+-----|
   | Slave      | No  |
   |------------+-----|
   | Superslave | No  |
   |------------+-----|
   | Autoserial | Yes |
   +------------------+

   As of 2.9.6, PowerDNS comes with an LDAP backend. The code for this was
   submitted by Norbert Sendetzky.

   The following settings are available to configure the LDAP backend:

   ldap-host

           LDAP host to connect to, defaults to localhost.

   ldap-port

           LDAP port to connect to, defaults to 389.

   ldap-basedn

           Root for DNS searches. Must be configured before the LDAP backend
           will work.

   ldap-binddn

           Distinguished Name to bind with to the LDAP server. Defaults to
           the empty string for anonymous bind.

   ldap-secret

           Secret to bind with to LDAP server. Defaults to the empty string
           for anonymous bind.

   ldap-default-ttl

           TTL for records with no dnsttl attribute. Defaults to 86400
           seconds.

   The schema used is that defined by RFC 1279 and is present in OpenLDAP
   under the name 'cosine.schema'. An example LDIF file:

 # zone related things including SOA, NS and MX records

 dn: dc=example
 objectclass: top
 objectclass: dnsdomain
 objectclass: domainrelatedobject
 dc: example
 soarecord: ns.example.dom hostmaster@example.dom 2002010401 1800 3600 604800 84600
 nsrecord: ns.example.dom
 mxrecord: 10 mail.example.dom
 mxrecord: 20 mail2.example.dom
 associateddomain: example.dom


 # Simple record (mail.example.dom has address 172.168.0.2)

 dn: dc=mail,dc=example
 objectclass: top
 objectclass: dnsdomain
 objectclass: domainrelatedobject
 dc: mail
 arecord: 172.168.0.2
 associateddomain: mail.example.dom

 # There may more than one entry per record
 # This is also applicable to all other records including "associateddomain"
 # but not for a CNAME record

 dn: dc=server,dc=snapcount
 objectclass: top
 objectclass: dnsdomain
 objectclass: domainrelatedobject
 dc: server
 arecord: 10.1.0.1
 arecord: 172.168.0.1
 associateddomain: server.example.dom


 # domain alias ({mail2,ns}.example.dom is CNAME for server.example.dom)
 # cnamerecord must only contain one entry

 dn: dc=backup,dc=snapcount
 objectclass: top
 objectclass: dnsdomain
 objectclass: domainrelatedobject
 dc: server
 cnamerecord: server.example.dom
 associateddomain: mail2.example.dom
 associateddomain: ns.example.dom

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

                           Appendix B. PDNS internals

   PDNS is normally launched by the init.d script but is actually a binary
   called pdns_server. This file is started by the start and monitor commands
   to the init.d script. Other commands are implemented using the
   controlsocket.

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

B.1. Controlsocket

   The controlsocket is the means to contact a running PDNS daemon, or as we
   now know, a running pdns_server. Over this sockets, instructions can be
   sent using the pdns_control program. Like the pdns_server, this program is
   normally accessed via the init.d script.

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

  B.1.1. pdns_control

   To communicate with PDNS over the controlsocket, the pdns_control command
   is used. The init.d script also calls pdns_control. The syntax is simple:
   pdns_control command arguments. Currently this is most useful for telling
   backends to rediscover domains or to force the transmission of
   notifications. See Section 13.3.

   Besides the commands implemented by the init.d script, for which see
   Section 2.3, the following pdns_control commands are available:

   ccounts

           Returns counts on the contents of the cache.

   notify domain

           Adds a domain to the notification list, causing PDNS to send out
           notifications to the nameservers of a domain. Can be used if a
           slave missed previous notifications or is generally hard of
           hearing.

   notify-host domain host

           Same as above but with operator specified IP address as
           destination, to be used if you know better than PowerDNS.

   purge

           Purges the entire Packet Cache - see Chapter 9.

   purge record

           Purges all entries for this exact record name - see Chapter 9.

   purge record$

           Purges all cache entries ending on this name, effectively purging
           an entire domain - see Chapter 9.

   purge

           Purges the entire Packet Cache - see Chapter 9.

   purge record

           Purges all entries for this exact record name - see Chapter 9.

   rediscover

           Instructs backends that new domains may have appeared in the
           database, or, in the case of the Bind backend, in named.conf.

   reload

           Instructs backends that the contents of domains may have changed.
           Many backends ignore this, the Bind backend will check timestamps
           for all zones (once queries come in for it) and reload if needed.

   retrieve domain

           Retrieve a slave domain from its master. Done nearly immediatly.

   set variable value

           Set a configuration parameter. Currently only the 'query-logging'
           parameter can be set.

   uptime

           Reports the uptime of the daemon in human readable form.

   version

           returns the version of a running pdns daemon.

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

B.2. Guardian

   When launched by the init.d script, pdns_server wraps itself inside a
   'guardian'. This guardian monitors the performance of the inner
   pdns_server instance which shows up in the process list of your OS as
   pdns_server-instance. It is also this guardian that pdns_control talks to.
   A STOP is interpreted by the guardian, which causes the guardian to sever
   the connection to the inner process and terminate it, after which it
   terminates itself. The init.d script DUMP and SHOW commands need to access
   the inner process, because the guardian itself does not run a nameserver.
   For this purpose, the guardian passes controlsocket requests to the
   control console of the inner process. This is the same console as seen
   with init.d MONITOR.

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

B.3. Modules & Backends

   PDNS has the concept of backends and modules. Non-static PDNS
   distributions have the ability to load new modules at runtime, while the
   static versions come with a number of modules built in, but cannot load
   more.

   Related parameters are:

   --help

           Outputs all known parameters, including those of launched
           backends, see below.

   --launch=backend,backend1,backend1:name

           Launches backends. In its most simple form, supply all backends
           that need to be launched. If you find that you need to launch
           single backends multiple times, you can specify a name for later
           instantiations. In this case, there are 2 instances of backend1,
           and the second one is called 'name'. This means that
           --backend1-setting is available to configure the first or main
           instance, and --backend1-name-setting for the second one.

   --load-modules=/directory/libyourbackend.so

           If backends are available in nonstandard directories, specify
           their location here. Multiple files can be loaded if separated by
           commas. Only available in non-static PDNS distributions.

   --list-modules

           Will list all available modules, both compiled in and in
           dynamically loadable modules.

   To run on the commandline, use the pdns_server binary. For example, to see
   options for the gpgsql backend, use the following:

           $ /usr/sbin/pdns_server --launch=gpgsql --help=gpgsql
        

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

B.4. How PDNS translates DNS queries into backend queries

   A DNS query is not a straightforward lookup. Many DNS queries need to
   check the backend for additional data, for example to determine of an
   unfound record should lead to an NXDOMAIN ('we know about this domain, but
   that record does not exist') or an unauthoritative response.

   Simplified, without CNAME processing and wildcards, the algorithm is like
   this:

   When a query for a qname/qtype tuple comes in, it is requested directly
   from the backend. If present, PDNS adds the contents of the reply to the
   list of records to return. A question tuple may generate multiple answer
   records.

   Each of these records is now investigated to see if it needs 'additional
   processing'. This holds for example for MX records which may point to
   hosts for which the PDNS backends also contain data. This involves further
   lookups for A or AAAA records.

   After all additional processing has been performed, PDNS sieves out all
   double records which may well have appeared. The resulting set of records
   is added to the answer packet, and sent out.

   A zone transfer works by looking up the domain_id of the SOA record of the
   name and then listing all records of that domain_id. This is why all
   records in a domain need to have the same domain_id.

   When a query comes in for an unknown domain, PDNS starts looking for SOA
   records of all subdomains of the qname, so no.such.powerdns.com turns into
   a SOA query for no.such.powerdns.com, such.powerdns.com, powerdns.com,
   com, ''. When a SOA is found, that zone is consulted for relevant NS
   instructions which lead to a referral. If nothing is found within the
   zone, an authoritative NXDOMAIN is sent out.

   If no SOA was found, an unauthoritative no-error is returned.

   In reality, each query for a question tuple first involves checking for a
   CNAME, unless that resolution has been disabled with the skip-cname
   option.

   PDNS breaks strict RFC compatability by not always checking for the
   presence of a SOA record first. This is unlikely to lead to problems
   though.

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

                       Appendix C. Backend writers' guide

   PDNS backends are implemented via a simple yet powerful C++ interface. If
   your needs are not met by the PipeBackend, you may want to write your own.
   Doing so requires a copy of the PowerDNS Open Source Backend Development
   kit which can be found on http://downloads.powerdns.com/releases/dev.

   A backend contains zero DNS logic. It need not look for CNAMES, it need
   not return NS records unless explicitly asked for, etcetera. All DNS logic
   is contained within PDNS itself - backends should simply return records
   matching the description asked for.

   Warning However, please note that your backend can get queries in aNy      
           CAsE! If your database is case sensitive, like most are (with the  
           notable exception of MySQL), you must make sure that you do find   
           answers which differ only in case.                                 

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

C.1. Simple read-only native backends

   Implementing a backend consists of inheriting from the DNSBackend class.
   For read-only backends, which do not support slave operation, only the
   following methods are relevant:

         class DNSBackend
         {
         public:

         virtual bool lookup(const QType &qtype, const string &qdomain, DNSPacket *pkt_p=0, int zoneId=-1)=0;
         virtual bool list(int domain_id)=0;
         virtual bool get(DNSResourceRecord &r)=0;
         virtual bool getSOA(const string &name, SOAData &soadata);
         };
        

   Note that the first three methods must be implemented. getSOA() has a
   useful default implementation.

   The semantics are simple. Each instance of your class only handles one (1)
   query at a time. There is no need for locking as PDNS guarantees that your
   backend will never be called reentrantly.

   Some examples, a more formal specification is down below. A normal lookup
   starts like this:

         YourBackend yb;
         yb.lookup(QType::CNAME,"www.powerdns.com");
        

   Your class should now do everything to start this query. Perform as much
   preparation as possible - handling errors at this stage is better for PDNS
   than doing so later on. A real error should be reported by throwing an
   exception.

   PDNS will then call the get() method to get DNSResourceRecords back. The
   following code illustrates a typical query:

         yb.lookup(QType::CNAME,"www.powerdns.com");

         DNSResourceRecord rr;
         while(yb.get(rr))
           cout<<"Found cname pointing to '"+rr.content+"'"<<endl;
         }
        

   Each zone starts with a Start of Authority (SOA) record. This record is
   special so many backends will choose to implement it specially. The
   default getSOA() method performs a regular lookup on your backend to
   figure out the SOA, so if you have no special treatment for SOA records,
   where is no need to implement your own getSOA().

   Besides direct queries, PDNS also needs to be able to list a zone, to do
   zone transfers for example. Each zone has an id which should be unique
   within the backend. To list all records belonging to a zone id, the list()
   method is used. Conveniently, the domain_id is also available in the
   SOAData structure.

   The following lists the contents of a zone called "powerdns.com".

         SOAData sd;
         if(!yb.getSOA("powerdns.com",sd))  // are we authoritative over powerdns.com?
           return RCode::NotAuth;           // no

         yb.list(sd.domain_id);
         while(yb.get(rr))
           cout<<rr.qname<<"\t IN "<<rr.qtype.getName()<<"\t"<<rr.content<<endl;
        

   Please note that when so called 'fancy records' (see Chapter 14) are
   enabled, a backend can receive wildcard lookups. These have a % as the
   first character of the qdomain in lookup.

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

  C.1.1. A sample minimal backend

   This backend only knows about the host "random.powerdns.com", and
   furthermore, only about its A record:

 /* FIRST PART */
 class RandomBackend : public DNSBackend
 {
 public:
   bool list(int id) {
     return false; // we don't support AXFR
   }
    
   void lookup(const QType &type, const string &qdomain, DNSPacket *p, int zoneId)
   {
     if(type.getCode()!=QType::A || qdomain!="random.powerdns.com")  // we only know about random.powerdns.com A
       d_answer="";                                                  // no answer
     else {
       ostringstream os;
       os<<random()%256<<"."<<random()%256<<"."<<random()%256<<"."<<random()%256;
       d_answer=os.str();                                           // our random ip address
     }
   }

   bool get(DNSResourceRecord &rr)
   {
     if(!d_answer.empty()) {
       rr.qname="random.powerdns.com";                               // fill in details
       rr.qtype=QType::A;                                            // A record
       rr.ttl=86400;                                                 // 1 day
       rr.content=d_answer;

       d_answer="";                                                  // this was the last answer
      
       return true;
     }
     return false;                                                   // no more data
   }
  
 private:
   string d_answer;
 };

 /* SECOND PART */

 class RandomFactory : public BackendFactory
 {
 public:
   RandomFactory() : BackendFactory("random") {}

   DNSBackend *make(const string &suffix)
   {
     return new RandomBackend();
   }
 };

 /* THIRD PART */

 class RandomLoader
 {
 public:
   Loader()
   {
     BackendMakers().report(new RandomFactory);
    
     L<<Logger::Info<<" [RandomBackend] This is the randombackend ("__DATE__", "__TIME__") reporting"<<endl;
   } 
 };

 static RandomLoader randomloader;
        

   This simple backend can be used as an 'overlay'. In other words, it only
   knows about a single record, another loaded backend would have to know
   about the SOA and NS records and such. But nothing prevents us from
   loading it without another backend.

   The first part of the code contains the actual logic and should be pretty
   straightforward. The second part is a boilerplate 'factory' class which
   PDNS calls to create randombackend instances. Note that a 'suffix'
   parameter is passed. Real life backends also declare parameters for the
   configuration file; these get the 'suffix' appended to them. Note that the
   "random" in the constructor denotes the name by which the backend will be
   known.

   The third part registers the RandomFactory with PDNS. This is a simple C++
   trick which makes sure that this function is called on execution of the
   binary or when loading the dynamic module.

   Please note that a RandomBackend is actually in most PDNS releases. By
   default it lives on random.example.com, but you can change that by setting
   random-hostname.

   NOTE: this simple backend neglects to handle case properly! For a more
   complete example, see the full pdns-dev distribution as found on the
   website.

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

  C.1.2. Interface definition

   Classes:

   Table C-1. DNSResourceRecord class

   +-----------------------------------------------------------------------+
   | QType qtype          | QType of this record                           |
   |----------------------+------------------------------------------------|
   | string qname         | name of this record                            |
   |----------------------+------------------------------------------------|
   | string content       | ASCII representation of right hand side        |
   |----------------------+------------------------------------------------|
   | u_int16_t priority   | priority of an MX record.                      |
   |----------------------+------------------------------------------------|
   | u_int32_t ttl        | Time To Live of this record                    |
   |----------------------+------------------------------------------------|
   | int domain_id        | ID of the domain this record belongs to        |
   |----------------------+------------------------------------------------|
   | time_t last_modified | If unzero, last time_t this record was changed |
   +-----------------------------------------------------------------------+

   Table C-2. SOAData struct

   +------------------------------------------------------------------------+
   | string nameserver     | Name of the master nameserver of this zone     |
   |-----------------------+------------------------------------------------|
   | string hostmaster     | Hostmaster of this domain. May contain an @    |
   |-----------------------+------------------------------------------------|
   | u_int32_t serial      | Serial number of this zone                     |
   |-----------------------+------------------------------------------------|
   | u_int32_t refresh     | How often this zone should be refreshed        |
   |-----------------------+------------------------------------------------|
   | u_int32_t retry       | How often a failed zone pull should be         |
   |                       | retried.                                       |
   |-----------------------+------------------------------------------------|
   | u_int32_t expire      | If zone pulls failed for this long, retire     |
   |                       | records                                        |
   |-----------------------+------------------------------------------------|
   | u_int32_t default_ttl | Difficult                                      |
   |-----------------------+------------------------------------------------|
   | int domain_id         | The ID of the domain within this backend. Must |
   |                       | be filled!                                     |
   |-----------------------+------------------------------------------------|
   |                       | Pointer to the backend that feels              |
   | DNSBackend *db        | authoritative for a domain and can act as a    |
   |                       | slave                                          |
   +------------------------------------------------------------------------+

   Methods:

   void lookup(const QType &qtype, const string &qdomain, DNSPacket *pkt=0,
   int zoneId=-1)

           This function is used to initiate a straight lookup for a record
           of name 'qdomain' and type 'qtype'. A QType can be converted into
           an integer by invoking its getCode() method and into a string with
           the getCode().

           The original question may or may not be passed in the pointer p.
           If it is, you can retrieve (from 1.99.11 onwards) information
           about who asked the question with the getRemote(DNSPacket *)
           method. Alternatively, bool getRemote(struct sockaddr *sa,
           socklen_t *len) is available.

           Note that qdomain can be of any case and that your backend should
           make sure it is in effect case insensitive. Furthermore, the case
           of the original question should be retained in answers returned by
           get()!

           Finally, the domain_id might also be passed indicating that only
           answers from the indicated zone need apply. This can both be used
           as a restriction or as a possible speedup, hinting your backend
           where the answer might be found.

           If initiated succesfully, as indicated by returning true, answers
           should be made available over the get() method.

           Should throw an AhuException if an error occured accessing the
           database. Returning otherwise indicates that the query was started
           succesfully. If it is known that no data is available, no
           exception should be thrown! An exception indicates that the
           backend considers itself broken - not that no answers are
           available for a question.

           It is legal to return here, and have the first call to get()
           return false. This is interpreted as 'no data'

   bool list(int domain_id)

           Initiates a list of the indicated domain. Records should then be
           made available via the get() method. Need not include the SOA
           record. If it is, PDNS will not get confused.

           Should return false if the backend does not consider itself
           authoritative for this zone. Should throw an AhuException if an
           error occured accessing the database. Returning true indicates
           that data is or should be available.

   bool get(DNSResourceRecord &rr)

           Request a DNSResourceRecord from a query started by get() of
           list(). If this functions returns true, rr has been filled with
           data. When it returns false, no more data is available, and rr
           does not contain new data. A backend should make sure that it
           either fills out all fields of the DNSResourceRecord or resets
           them to their default values.

           The qname field of the DNSResourceRecord should be filled out with
           the exact qdomain passed to lookup, preserving its case. So if a
           query for 'CaSe.yourdomain.com' comes in and your database
           contains dat afor 'case.yourdomain.com', the qname field of rr
           should contin 'CaSe.yourdomain.com'!

           Should throw an AhuException in case a database error occurred.

   bool getSOA(const string &name, SOAData &soadata)

           If the backend considers itself authoritative over domain name,
           this method should fill out the passed SOAData structure and
           return a positive number. If the backend is functioning correctly,
           but does not consider itself authoritative, it should return 0. In
           case of errors, an AhuException should be thrown.

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

C.2. Reporting errors

   To report errors, the Logger class is available which works mostly like an
   iostream. Example usage is as shown above in the RandomBackend. Note that
   it is very important that each line is ended with endl as your message
   won't be visible otherwise.

   To indicate the importance of an error, the standard syslog errorlevels
   are available. They can be set by outputting Logger::Critical,
   Logger::Error, Logger::Warning, Logger::Notice, Logger::Info or
   Logger::Debug to L, in descending order of graveness.

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

C.3. Declaring and reading configuration details

   It is highly likely that a backend needs configuration details. On launch,
   these parameters need to be declared with PDNS so it knows it should
   accept them in the configuration file and on the commandline. Furthermore,
   they will be listed in the output of --help.

   Declaring arguments is done by implementing the member function
   declareArguments() in the factory class of your backend. PDNS will call
   this method after launching the backend.

   In the declareArguments() method, the function declare() is available. The
   exact definitions:

   void declareArguments(const string &suffix="")

           This method is called to allow a backend to register configurable
           parameters. The suffix is the sub-name of this module. There is no
           need to touch this suffix, just pass it on to the declare method.

   void declare(const string &suffix, const string &param, const string
   &explanation, const string &value)

           The suffix is passed to your method, and can be passed on to
           declare. param is the name of your parameter. explanation is what
           will appear in the output of --help. Furthermore, a default value
           can be supplied in the value parameter.

   A sample implementation:

             void declareArguments(const string &suffix)
             {
               declare(suffix,"dbname","Pdns backend database name to connect to","powerdns");
               declare(suffix,"user","Pdns backend user to connect as","powerdns");
               declare(suffix,"host","Pdns backend host to connect to","");
               declare(suffix,"password","Pdns backend password to connect with","");
             }
          

   After the arguments have been declared, they can be accessed from your
   backend using the mustDo(), getArg() and getArgAsNum() methods. The are
   defined as follows in the DNSBackend class:

   void setArgPrefix(const string &prefix)

           Must be called before any of the other accessing functions are
           used. Typical usage is 'setArgPrefix("mybackend"+suffix)' in the
           constructor of a backend.

   bool mustDo(const string &key)

           Returns true if the variable key is set to anything but 'no'.

   const string& getArg(const string &key)

           Returns the exact value of a parameter.

   int getArgAsNum(const string &key)

           Returns the numerical value of a parameter. Uses atoi() internally

   Sample usage from the BindBackend, using the bind-example-zones and
   bind-config parameters.

   if(mustDo("example-zones")) {
     insert(0,"www.example.com","A","1.2.3.4");
     /* ... */
   }
  

   if(!getArg("config").empty()) {
     BindParser BP;
    
     BP.parse(getArg("config"));
   }

          

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

C.4. Read/write slave-capable backends

   The backends above are 'natively capable' in that they contain all data
   relevant for a domain and do not pull in data from other nameservers. To
   enable storage of information, a backend must be able to do more.

   Before diving into the details of the implementation some theory is in
   order. Slave domains are pulled from the master. PDNS needs to know for
   which domains it is to be a slave, and for each slave domain, what the IP
   address of the master is.

   A slave zone is pulled from a master, after which it is 'fresh', but this
   is only temporary. In the SOA record of a zone there is a field which
   specifies the 'refresh' interval. After that interval has elapsed, the
   slave nameserver needs to check at the master ff the serial number there
   is higher than what is stored in the backend locally.

   If this is the case, PDNS dubs the domain 'stale', and schedules a
   transfer of data from the remote. This transfer remains scheduled until
   the serial numbers remote and locally are identical again.

   This theory is implemented by the getUnfreshSlaveInfos method, which is
   called on all backends periodically. This method fills a vector of
   SlaveDomains with domains that are unfresh and possibly stale.

   PDNS then retrieves the SOA of those domains remotely and locally and
   creates a list of stale domains. For each of these domains, PDNS starts a
   zonetransfer to resynchronise. Because zone transfers can fail, it is
   important that the interface to the backend allows for transaction
   semantics because a zone might otherwise be left in a halfway updated
   situation.

   The following excerpt from the DNSBackend shows the relevant functions:

           class DNSBackend {
           public:
            /* ... */
            virtual bool getDomainInfo(const string &domain, DomainInfo &di);
            virtual bool isMaster(const string &name, const string &ip);
            virtual bool startTransaction(const string &qname, int id);
            virtual bool commitTransaction();
            virtual bool abortTransaction();
            virtual bool feedRecord(const DNSResourceRecord &rr);
            virtual void getUnfreshSlaveInfos(vector<DomainInfo>* domains);
            virtual void setFresh(int id);
            /* ... */
          }
        

   The mentioned DomainInfo struct looks like this:

   Table C-3. DomainInfo struct

   +------------------------------------------------------------------------+
   | int id                          | ID of this zone within this backend  |
   |---------------------------------+--------------------------------------|
   | string master                   | IP address of the master of this     |
   |                                 | domain, if any                       |
   |---------------------------------+--------------------------------------|
   | u_int32_t serial                | Serial number of this zone           |
   |---------------------------------+--------------------------------------|
   | u_int32_t notified_serial       | Last serial number of this zone that |
   |                                 | slaves have seen                     |
   |---------------------------------+--------------------------------------|
   | time_t last_check               | Last time this zone was checked over |
   |                                 | at the master for changes            |
   |---------------------------------+--------------------------------------|
   | enum {Master,Slave,Native} kind | Type of zone                         |
   |---------------------------------+--------------------------------------|
   |                                 | Pointer to the backend that feels    |
   | DNSBackend *backend             | authoritative for a domain and can   |
   |                                 | act as a slave                       |
   +------------------------------------------------------------------------+

   These functions all have a default implementation that returns false -
   which explains that these methods can be omitted in simple backends.
   Furthermore, unlike with simple backends, a slave capable backend must
   make sure that the 'DNSBackend *db' field of the SOAData record is filled
   out correctly - it is used to determine which backend will house this
   zone.

   bool isMaster(const string &name, const string &ip);

           If a backend considers itself a slave for the domain name and if
           the IP address in ip is indeed a master, it should return true.
           False otherwise. This is a first line of checks to guard against
           reloading a domain unnecessarily.

   void getUnfreshSlaveInfos(vector<DomainInfo>* domains)

           When called, the backend should examine its list of slave domains
           and add any unfresh ones to the domains vector.

   bool getDomainInfo(const string &name, DomainInfo & di)

           This is like getUnfreshSlaveInfos, but for a specific domain. If
           the backend considers itself authoritative for the named zone, di
           should be filled out, and 'true' be returned. Otherwise return
           false.

   bool startTransaction(const string &qname, int id)

           When called, the backend should start a transaction that can be
           committed or rolled back atomically later on. In SQL terms, this
           function should BEGIN a transaction and DELETE all records.

   bool feedRecord(const DNSResourceRecord &rr)

           Insert this record.

   bool commitTransaction();

           Make the changes effective. In SQL terms, execute COMMIT.

   bool abortTransaction();

           Abort changes. In SQL terms, execute ABORT.

   bool setFresh()

           Indicate that a domain has either been updated or refreshed
           without the need for a retransfer. This causes the domain to
           vanish from the vector modified by getUnfreshSlaveInfos().

   PDNS will always call startTransaction() before making calls to
   feedRecord(). Although it is likely that abortTransaction() will be called
   in case of problems, backends should also be prepared to abort from their
   destructor.

   The actual code in PDNS is currently (1.99.9):

     Resolver resolver;
     resolver.axfr(remote,domain.c_str());

     db->startTransaction(domain, domain_id);
    
     L<<Logger::Error<<"AXFR started for '"<<domain<<"'"<<endl;
     Resolver::res_t recs;
    
     while(resolver.axfrChunk(recs)) {
       for(Resolver::res_t::const_iterator i=recs.begin();i!=recs.end();++i) {
         db->feedRecord(*i);
       }
     }
     db->commitTransaction();
     db->setFresh(domain_id);
     L<<Logger::Error<<"AXFR done for '"<<domain<<"'"<<endl;
        

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

  C.4.1. Supermaster/Superslave capability

   A backend that wants to act as a 'superslave' for a master should
   implement the following method:

             class DNSBackend
             {
                virtual bool superMasterBackend(const string &ip, const string &domain, const vector<DNSResourceRecord>&nsset, string *account, DNSBackend **db)
             };
          

   This function gets called with the IP address of the potential
   supermaster, the domain it is sending a notification for and the set of NS
   records for this domain at that IP address.

   Using the supplied data, the backend needs to determine if this is a
   bonafide 'supernotification' which should be honoured. If it decides that
   it should, the supplied pointer to 'account' needs to be filled with the
   configured name of the supermaster (if accounting is desired), and the db
   needs to be filled with a pointer to your backend.

   Supermaster/superslave is a complicated concept, if this is all unclear
   see Section 13.2.1.

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

C.5. Read/write master-capable backends

   In order to be a useful master for a domain, notifies must be sent out
   whenever a domain is changed. Periodically, PDNS queries backends for
   domains that may have changed, and sends out notifications for slave
   nameservers.

   In order to do so, PDNS calls the getUpdatedMasters() method. Like the
   getUnfreshSlaveInfos() function mentioned above, this should add changed
   domain names to the vector passed.

   The following excerpt from the DNSBackend shows the relevant functions:

           class DNSBackend {
           public:
            /* ... */
            virtual void getUpdatedMasters(vector<DomainInfo>* domains);
            virtual void setNotifed(int id, u_int32_t serial);
            /* ... */
          }
        

   These functions all have a default implementation that returns false -
   which explains that these methods can be omitted in simple backends.
   Furthermore, unlike with simple backends, a slave capable backend must
   make sure that the 'DNSBackend *db' field of the SOAData record is filled
   out correctly - it is used to determine which backend will house this
   zone.

   void getUpdatedMasters(vector<DomainInfo>* domains)

           When called, the backend should examine its list of master domains
           and add any changed ones to the DomainInfo vector

   bool setNotified(int domain_id, u_int32_t serial)

           Indicate that notifications have been queued for this domain and
           that it need not be considered 'updated' anymore

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

                         Appendix D. Compiling PowerDNS

D.1. Compiling PowerDNS on Unix

   Note For now, see the Open Source PowerDNS site. ./configure ; make ; make 
        install will do The Right Thing for most people.                      

   PowerDNS can becompiled with modules built in, or with modules designed to
   be loaded at runtime. All that is configured before compiling using the
   well known autoconf/automake system.

   To compile in modules, specify them as --with-modules="mod1 mod2 mod3",
   substituting the desired module names. Each backend has a module name in
   the table at the beginning of its section.

   To compile a module for inclusion at runtime, which is great if you are a
   unix vendor, use --with-dynmodules="mod1 mod2 mod3". These modules then
   end up as .so files in the compiled libdir.

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

  D.1.1. AIX

   Known to compile with gcc, but only since 2.9.8. AIX lacks POSIX
   semaphores so they need to be emulated, as with MacOS X.

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

  D.1.2. FreeBSD

   Works fine, but use gmake. Pipe backend is currently broken, for reasons,
   see Section A.1. Due to the threading model of FreeBSD, PowerDNS does not
   benefit from additional CPUs on the system.

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

  D.1.3. Linux

   Linux is probably the best supported platform as most of the main coders
   are Linux users. The static DEB distribution is known to have problems on
   Debian 'Sid', but that doesn't matter as PowerDNS is a native part of
   Debian 'Sid'. Just apt-get!

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

  D.1.4. MacOS X

   Did compile at one point but maintenance has lapsed. Let us know if you
   can provide us with a login on MacOS X or if you want to help.

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

  D.1.5. OpenBSD

   Compiles but then does not work very well. We hear that it may work with
   more recent versions of gcc, please let us know on
   <pdns-dev@mailman.powerdns.com>.

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

  D.1.6. Solaris

   Solaris 7 is supported, but only just. AAAA records do not work on Solaris
   7. Solaris 8 and 9 work fine. The 'Sunpro' compiler has not been tried but
   is reported to be lacking large parts of the Standard Template Library,
   which PowerDNS relies on heavily. Use gcc and gmake (if available).
   Regular Solaris make has some issues with some PowerDNS Makefile
   constructs.

   When compiling, make sure that you have /usr/ccs/bin in your path.
   Furthermore, with some versions of MySQL, you may have to add
   "LDFLAGS=-lz" before ./configure.

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

D.2. Compiling PowerDNS on Windows

   By Michel Stol (<michel@powerdns.com>).

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

  D.2.1. Assumptions

   I will assume these things from you:

   You have the PowerDNS sources.

           There's not much to compile without the source files, eh? :)

   You are using Microsoft Visual C++. If you get it to compile using a free
   compiler, please let us know!

           From the day that we began porting the UNIX PowerDNS sources to
           Microsoft Windows we used Microsoft Visual C++ as our development
           environment of choice.

           We used Visual C++ 6.0 to compile all sources (both standard
           version and SP5). Other versions (including Visual C++ .NET) are
           untested.

   You are using Microsoft Windows NT, 2000 or XP

           I will assume that the system where you want to compile the
           sources on is running Microsoft Windows NT, 2000 or XP. These are
           the operating systems that where found running PowerDNS for
           Windows.

           Note You probably can compile the sources on other Windows  
                versions too, but that is currently untested.          

   You are using an English Windows version.

           Troughout this document I will use the English names for menu
           items, names etc., so if you are running a non-English Windows or
           MSVC version you have to translate those things yourself. But I
           don't think that would be a big problem.

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

  D.2.2. Prequisites

   Although we tried to keep PowerDNS for Windows' dependencies down to a
   minimum, you will still need some programs and libraries to be able to
   compile the sources.

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

    D.2.2.1. pthreads for Windows

   The pthreads for Windows library is a Windows implementation of the POSIX
   threads specification, which is used a lot in UNIX programs.

   PowerDNS uses pthreads too, and to ease the porting process we decided not
   to reinvent the wheel, but to use pthreads for Windows instead.

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

      D.2.2.1.1. Getting pthreads for Windows

   Pthreads for Windows is available from anonymous ftp at
   ftp://sources.redhat.com/pub/pthreads-win32/. You should download the
   latest pthreads-YYYY-MM-DD.exe file.

   Note PowerDNS for Windows was tested with the snapshot of 2002-03-02 of    
        the library.                                                          

   For more information you can visit the pthreads for Windows homepage at
   http://sources.redhat.com/pthreads-win32/

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

    D.2.2.2. Installing pthreads for Windows

   To install the pthreads for Windows library you have to locate your
   pthreads-YYYY-MM-DD.exe file and start it.

   After starting the executable a self-extractor dialog will show up where
   you can specify where to extract the contents of the file. When you
   selected a location you can press the Extract button to extract all
   content to the target directory.

   The library is now installed, we still have to tell Visual C++ where it's
   located though, more on that later.

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

  D.2.3. Nullsoft Installer

   For our installation program we used Nullsoft's Installer System (NSIS).
   We used NSIS because it's easy to use, versatile and free (and it uses
   SuperPiMP(TM) technology, but they refuse to tell us what it is ;)). If
   the name Nullsoft rings a bell, it's because they're the guys who made
   winamp.

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

    D.2.3.1. Getting the Nullsoft Installer

   The Nullsoft Installer can be downloaded at their website, which is
   located at http://www.nullsoft.com/free/nsis/. The file that you should
   download is called nsisXXX.exe (where XXX is the latest version).

   Note You can find the NSIS documentation at that website too.              

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

    D.2.3.2. Installing the Nullsoft Installer

   Installing NSIS is easy. All there is to it is locating the installer and
   execute it. Then just follow the installation steps.

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

  D.2.4. Setting up the build-environment

   Before starting Microsoft Visual C++ and compile PowerDNS for Windows, you
   first have to set up your build environment.

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

    D.2.4.1. Make Microsoft Visual C++ recognize *.cc and *.hh (optional)

   All PowerDNS source files are in the form name.cc, and all header files in
   the form name.hh. These extensions aren't recognized by MSVC by default,
   so you might want to change that first.

   Note Only perform this step if you want to be able to edit the *.cc and    
        *.hh files in MSVC.                                                   

   Caution If you decide to perform this step, remember that it requires      
           modification of the Windows registry, always make a backup before  
           modifying!                                                         

   Ok, after that word of caution we can now proceed. You have to follow
   these steps:

    1. Start the registry editor by entering regedit.exe in the run prompt
       (Start->Run...).

    2. Right click on HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT and select New->Key. A new key will
       appear, change that key to ".cc", then change the default value to
       "cppfile"

       Then perform the same step for ".hh" (use "hfile" instead of
       "cppfile").

    3. Go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\DevStudio\6.0\Build
       System\Components\Platforms\Win32 (x86)\Tools\32-bit C/C++ Compiler
       for 80x86. And add ";*.cc" to the Input_Spec value (so that it becomes
       "*.c;*.cpp;*.cxx;*.cc").

       Note If you happen to use another platform (like alpha) to      
            compile the sources, you have to do the step above for     
            that platform.                                             

    4. Go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\DevStudio\6.0\Search. And
       add ";*.cc;*.hh" to the FIF_Filter value (so that it becomes
       "*.c;*.cpp;*.cxx;*.tli;*.h;*.tlh;*.inl;*.rc;*.cc;*.hh").

    5. Finally change HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\DevStudio\6.0\Text
       Editor\Tabs/Language Settings\C/C++. And add ";cc;hh" to the
       FileExtensions value (so that it becomes
       "cpp;cxx;c;h;hxx;hpp;inl;tlh;tli;rc;rc2;hh;cc").

    6. Close the registry editor.

   Now should MSVC properly recognize the files as being C++.

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

    D.2.4.2. Setting Microsoft Visual C++'s directories

   MSVC needs to locate some include files, libraries and executables when it
   has to build PowerDNS for Windows. We are now going to tell MSVC where to
   find those.

   To enter the directory dialog you have to go to
   Tools->Options...->Directories.

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

      D.2.4.2.1. Setting the pthreads directories

   When you are in the directory dialog you can add the pthreads for Windows
   directory.

   First add the include directory, to do this you have to select Include
   files from the Show directories for: combobox. Then press the New button
   and browse to the include directory of pthreads (ie. C:\pthreads\include).

   Then switch to Library files and add the library directory (ie.
   C:\pthreads\lib) using the same method as above.

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

      D.2.4.2.2. Setting the Nullsoft Installer directory

   While still being in the directory dialog, switch to Executable files and
   add the Nullsoft Installer directory (ie. C:\Program Files\NSIS) to the
   list.

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

  D.2.5. Compilation

   Finally, after all the reading, installing and configuring we are ready to
   start compiling PowerDNS for Windows.

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

    D.2.5.1. Starting the compilation

   To start the compilation you first have to open the PowerDNS workspace
   (powerdns.dsw) using explorer or from the File->Open Workspace... menu in
   MSVC.

   After you opened the workspace you can start compiling. Check all the
   checkboxes in the Build->Batch Build... menu and press the Build button.

   Now cross your fingers and go make some coffee or tea while compiling
   PowerDNS for Windows. :)

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

    D.2.5.2. Yay! It compiled

   Congratulations, you have now compiled PowerDNS for Windows!

   All the release builds of the binaries are in the Release directory
   (including the generated installer). The debug builds are in the, guess
   what, Debug directory.

   Now you can start installing PowerDNS, but that's beyond the scope of this
   document. See the online documentation for more information about that.

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

    D.2.5.3. What if it went wrong?

   If the compilation fails, then try reading this article again, and again
   to see if you did something wrong.

   If you are pretty sure that it's a bug, either in the PowerDNS sources,
   the build system or in this article, then please send an e-mail to
   <pdns-dev@mailman.powerdns.com> describing your problem. We will then try
   to fix it.

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

  D.2.6. Miscellaneous

   Some miscellaneous information.

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

    D.2.6.1. Credits

   Michel Stol would like to thank these people:

   Bert Hubert

           For writing the wonderfull PowerDNS software and learning me stuff
           that I'd otherwise never had learned.

   PowerDNS B.V.

           For being great colleagues.

   The pthreads-win32 crew (see the pthreads-win32 CONTRIBUTORS file).

           For easing our porting process by writing a great Windows
           implementation of pthreads.

   The guys over at Nullsoft.

           For creating the Nullsoft Installer System (NSIS), and Winamp, the
           program we use every day to make a lot of noise in the office.

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

    D.2.6.2. Contact information

   If you have a comment, or a bug report concerning either this document or
   the PowerDNS sources you can contact <pdns-dev@mailman.powerdns.com>

   For general information about PowerDNS, the pdns server, express,
   documentation etc. I advice you to visit http://www.powerdns.com/

   If you are interested in buying PowerDNS you can send a mail to
   <sales@powerdns.com> or you can visit the PowerDNS website at
   http://www.powerdns.com/pdns/

   If you want to praise my work, ask me to marry you, deposit $1.000.000 on
   my bank account or flame me to death, then you can mail me at
   <michel@powerdns.com> :)

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

    D.2.6.3. Legal information

   Microsoft, Visual C++, Windows, Windows NT, Windows 2000, Windows XP and
   Win32 are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft
   Corporation in the U.S.A. and/or other countries.

   Other product and company names mentioned herein may be the trademarks of
   their respective owners.

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

      Appendix E. PowerDNS license (GNU General Public License version 2)

   GNU GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE TERMS AND CONDITIONS FOR COPYING, DISTRIBUTION
   AND MODIFICATION

   \r 0. This License applies to any program or other work which contains a
   notice placed by the copyright holder saying it may be distributed under
   the terms of this General Public License. The "Program", below, refers to
   any such program or work, and a "work based on the Program" means either
   the Program or any derivative work under copyright law: that is to say, a
   work containing the Program or a portion of it, either verbatim or with
   modifications and/or translated into another language. (Hereinafter,
   translation is included without limitation in the term "modification".)
   Each licensee is addressed as "you".

   Activities other than copying, distribution and modification are not
   covered by this License; they are outside its scope. The act of running
   the Program is not restricted, and the output from the Program is covered
   only if its contents constitute a work based on the Program (independent
   of having been made by running the Program). Whether that is true depends
   on what the Program does.

   1. You may copy and distribute verbatim copies of the Program's source
   code as you receive it, in any medium, provided that you conspicuously and
   appropriately publish on each copy an appropriate copyright notice and
   disclaimer of warranty; keep intact all the notices that refer to this
   License and to the absence of any warranty; and give any other recipients
   of the Program a copy of this License along with the Program.

   You may charge a fee for the physical act of transferring a copy, and you
   may at your option offer warranty protection in exchange for a fee.

   2. You may modify your copy or copies of the Program or any portion of it,
   thus forming a work based on the Program, and copy and distribute such
   modifications or work under the terms of Section 1 above, provided that
   you also meet all of these conditions:

   a) You must cause the modified files to carry prominent notices stating
   that you changed the files and the date of any change.

   b) You must cause any work that you distribute or publish, that in whole
   or in part contains or is derived from the Program or any part thereof, to
   be licensed as a whole at no charge to all third parties under the terms
   of this License.\r

   c) If the modified program normally reads commands interactively when run,
   you must cause it, when started running for such interactive use in the
   most ordinary way, to print or display an announcement including an
   appropriate copyright notice and a notice that there is no warranty (or
   else, saying that you provide a warranty) and that users may redistribute
   the program under these conditions, and telling the user how to view a
   copy of this License. (Exception: if the Program itself is interactive but
   does not normally print such an announcement, your work based on the
   Program is not required to print an announcement.) These requirements
   apply to the modified work as a whole. If identifiable sections of that
   work are not derived from the Program, and can be reasonably considered
   independent and separate works in themselves, then this License, and its
   terms, do not apply to those sections when you distribute them as separate
   works. But when you distribute the same sections as part of a whole which
   is a work based on the Program, the distribution of the whole must be on
   the terms of this License, whose permissions for other licensees extend to
   the entire whole, and thus to each and every part regardless of who wrote
   it.

   Thus, it is not the intent of this section to claim rights or contest your
   rights to work written entirely by you; rather, the intent is to exercise
   the right to control the distribution of derivative or collective works
   based on the Program.

   In addition, mere aggregation of another work not based on the Program
   with the Program (or with a work based on the Program) on a volume of a
   storage or distribution medium does not bring the other work under the
   scope of this License.

   3. You may copy and distribute the Program (or a work based on it, under
   Section 2) in object code or executable form under the terms of Sections 1
   and 2 above provided that you also do one of the following:

   a) Accompany it with the complete corresponding machine-readable source
   code, which must be distributed under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above
   on a medium customarily used for software interchange; or,

   b) Accompany it with a written offer, valid for at least three years, to
   give any third party, for a charge no more than your cost of physically
   performing source distribution, a complete machine-readable copy of the
   corresponding source code, to be distributed under the terms of Sections 1
   and 2 above on a medium customarily used for software interchange; or,

   \r c) Accompany it with the information you received as to the offer to
   distribute corresponding source code. (This alternative is allowed only
   for noncommercial distribution and only if you received the program in
   object code or executable form with such an offer, in accord with
   Subsection b above.)

   The source code for a work means the preferred form of the work for making
   modifications to it. For an executable work, complete source code means
   all the source code for all modules it contains, plus any associated
   interface definition files, plus the scripts used to control compilation
   and installation of the executable. However, as a special exception, the
   source code distributed need not include anything that is normally
   distributed (in either source or binary form) with the major components
   (compiler, kernel, and so on) of the operating system on which the
   executable runs, unless that component itself accompanies the executable.

   If distribution of executable or object code is made by offering access to
   copy from a designated place, then offering equivalent access to copy the
   source code from the same place counts as distribution of the source code,
   even though third parties are not compelled to copy the source along with
   the object code. 4. You may not copy, modify, sublicense, or distribute
   the Program except as expressly provided under this License. Any attempt
   otherwise to copy, modify, sublicense or distribute the Program is void,
   and will automatically terminate your rights under this License. However,
   parties who have received copies, or rights, from you under this License
   will not have their licenses terminated so long as such parties remain in
   full compliance.

   5. You are not required to accept this License, since you have not signed
   it. However, nothing else grants you permission to modify or distribute
   the Program or its derivative works. These actions are prohibited by law
   if you do not accept this License. Therefore, by modifying or distributing
   the Program (or any work based on the Program), you indicate your
   acceptance of this License to do so, and all its terms and conditions for
   copying, distributing or modifying the Program or works based on it.

   6. Each time you redistribute the Program (or any work based on the
   Program), the recipient automatically receives a license from the original
   licensor to copy, distribute or modify the Program subject to these terms
   and conditions. You may not impose any further restrictions on the
   recipients' exercise of the rights granted herein. You are not responsible
   for enforcing compliance by third parties to this License.

   7. If, as a consequence of a court judgment or allegation of patent
   infringement or for any other reason (not limited to patent issues),
   conditions are imposed on you (whether by court order, agreement or
   otherwise) that contradict the conditions of this License, they do not
   excuse you from the conditions of this License. If you cannot distribute
   so as to satisfy simultaneously your obligations under this License and
   any other pertinent obligations, then as a consequence you may not
   distribute the Program at all. For example, if a patent license would not
   permit royalty-free redistribution of the Program by all those who receive
   copies directly or indirectly through you, then the only way you could
   satisfy both it and this License would be to refrain entirely from
   distribution of the Program.

   If any portion of this section is held invalid or unenforceable under any
   particular circumstance, the balance of the section is intended to apply
   and the section as a whole is intended to apply in other circumstances.\r

   It is not the purpose of this section to induce you to infringe any
   patents or other property right claims or to contest validity of any such
   claims; this section has the sole purpose of protecting the integrity of
   the free software distribution system, which is implemented by public
   license practices. Many people have made generous contributions to the
   wide range of software distributed through that system in reliance on
   consistent application of that system; it is up to the author/donor to
   decide if he or she is willing to distribute software through any other
   system and a licensee cannot impose that choice.

   This section is intended to make thoroughly clear what is believed to be a
   consequence of the rest of this License. 8. If the distribution and/or use
   of the Program is restricted in certain countries either by patents or by
   copyrighted interfaces, the original copyright holder who places the
   Program under this License may add an explicit geographical distribution
   limitation excluding those countries, so that distribution is permitted
   only in or among countries not thus excluded. In such case, this License
   incorporates the limitation as if written in the body of this License.

   9. The Free Software Foundation may publish revised and/or new versions of
   the General Public License from time to time. Such new versions will be
   similar in spirit to the present version, but may differ in detail to
   address new problems or concerns.

   Each version is given a distinguishing version number. If the Program
   specifies a version number of this License which applies to it and "any
   later version", you have the option of following the terms and conditions
   either of that version or of any later version published by the Free
   Software Foundation. If the Program does not specify a version number of
   this License, you may choose any version ever published by the Free
   Software Foundation.

   10. If you wish to incorporate parts of the Program into other free
   programs whose distribution conditions are different, write to the author
   to ask for permission. For software which is copyrighted by the Free
   Software Foundation, write to the Free Software Foundation; we sometimes
   make exceptions for this. Our decision will be guided by the two goals of
   preserving the free status of all derivatives of our free software and of
   promoting the sharing and reuse of software generally.

   NO WARRANTY

   11. BECAUSE THE PROGRAM IS LICENSED FREE OF CHARGE, THERE IS NO WARRANTY
   FOR THE PROGRAM, TO THE EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE LAW. EXCEPT WHEN
   OTHERWISE STATED IN WRITING THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND/OR OTHER PARTIES
   PROVIDE THE PROGRAM "AS IS" WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EITHER EXPRESSED
   OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF
   MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. THE ENTIRE RISK AS
   TO THE QUALITY AND PERFORMANCE OF THE PROGRAM IS WITH YOU. SHOULD THE
   PROGRAM PROVE DEFECTIVE, YOU ASSUME THE COST OF ALL NECESSARY SERVICING,
   REPAIR OR CORRECTION.\r

   12. IN NO EVENT UNLESS REQUIRED BY APPLICABLE LAW OR AGREED TO IN WRITING
   WILL ANY COPYRIGHT HOLDER, OR ANY OTHER PARTY WHO MAY MODIFY AND/OR
   REDISTRIBUTE THE PROGRAM AS PERMITTED ABOVE, BE LIABLE TO YOU FOR DAMAGES,
   INCLUDING ANY GENERAL, SPECIAL, INCIDENTAL OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES
   ARISING OUT OF THE USE OR INABILITY TO USE THE PROGRAM (INCLUDING BUT NOT
   LIMITED TO LOSS OF DATA OR DATA BEING RENDERED INACCURATE OR LOSSES
   SUSTAINED BY YOU OR THIRD PARTIES OR A FAILURE OF THE PROGRAM TO OPERATE
   WITH ANY OTHER PROGRAMS), EVEN IF SUCH HOLDER OR OTHER PARTY HAS BEEN
   ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES.

   END OF TERMS AND CONDITIONS