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  1. #1
    Join Date
    Apr 2008
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    United States, MI
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    The Perfect DNS Setup

    I am required to setup a redundant, multi-location, highly available DNS setup.

    I was thinking of asking my Colo provider about Any/Mulitcast, however that may be overkill.

    I was wondering if anyone else had any ideas on the subject? I would prefer to have an HA setup of some sort..

    So ideas please, my turn up time for this is about ~3-4 months or so, so I have time now to start picking up the pieces and building it in my backroom before deployment.
    Steven Crothers
    No BS cloud engineer and Red Hat architect.

  2. #2
    Join Date
    May 2006
    Location
    NJ, USA
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    I think maybe Steven at Rack911 would be someone good to consult about this, he does all kinds of complex set ups.

  3. #3
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    Will do, I'm familiar with Steve from the SL forums. Seems like a good guy, it helps to get a reference though
    Steven Crothers
    No BS cloud engineer and Red Hat architect.

  4. #4
    Join Date
    Aug 2009
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    Orlando, FL
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    If you are using Cpanel's DNS, you can always run BIND on one of your cpanel boxes and then use their "DNSonly" to replicate all your zone files to a different data center. That's how I've always done it in the hosting world.

    Other than that I've setup bind on CentOS/RHEL boxes and setup zone transfers to boxes in other data centers. It shouldn't be a big deal.

  5. #5
    Join Date
    Aug 2002
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    Bharat
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    4,808
    For non cPanel based servers, have a look at powerdns.
    Vinsar.Net - Quality Web Hosting at Economical Price on USA & European Servers
    Offering domains, shared, reseller & VPS hosting.
    Reliable Domain Reseller Account Resell Domains with Confidence

  6. #6
    Join Date
    May 2006
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    Quote Originally Posted by Vinayak_Sharma View Post
    For non cPanel based servers, have a look at powerdns.
    Love powerdns

  7. #7
    Join Date
    Feb 2004
    Location
    UK
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    I third that pdns is excellent.

    In fact all our Cpanel DNS servers dont use bind any more, we use pdns across the board.

    I dont know what the OP wants to achieve, but running 4 DNS servers on seperate network's works well for my setup.

    Good luck.

  8. #8
    Join Date
    Apr 2008
    Location
    United States, MI
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    @Skullbox, No I don't use cPanel at all.

    I'll research into PowerDNS, if its a winner I thank you all.

    @Abtme, I'm just looking to setup a highly available DNS server thats going to have many many changes a day (many being a variable that varies greatly lol). I was also looking for something a bit more feature rich than BIND so PowerDNS may work out.

    I appreciate the help folks! Any ideas on an HA setup? 6-8 servers or so with 2 IP's would be ideal, with each server being in a different location.

    I'm not an IP engineer by any means so any higher end ideas are welcome and I can discuss them with my provider.
    Steven Crothers
    No BS cloud engineer and Red Hat architect.

  9. #9
    Join Date
    Aug 2009
    Location
    Orlando, FL
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    I checked out powerDNS. Is this still being maintained? It looks very old as the release notes are refrencing "support added for Solaris 9."

  10. #10
    Join Date
    Mar 2006
    Location
    Reston, VA
    Posts
    3,131
    www.dnsmadeeasy.com should work great for what your trying to accomplish, and they should be able to slave you as well.
    Yellow Fiber Networks
    http://www.yellowfiber.net : Managed Solutions - Colocation - Network Services IPv4/IPv6
    Ashburn/Denver/NYC/Dallas/Chicago Markets Served zak@yellowfiber.net

  11. #11
    Join Date
    Dec 2006
    Location
    Netherlands
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    Follow Spudstr.

    Simply maintain 1 server on a HA platform by yourself. Slave your DNS to another Company (DNSMadeEasy, will do. We use EasyDNS). Will work out extremely well.

  12. #12
    Join Date
    Aug 2002
    Location
    Sacramento, CA
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    353
    I'd definitely recommend DNSMadeEasy. If you are only doing a few domains, probably the most cost effective solution. They can do DNS as the master and you just manage through their interface, or they can be a slave to your own DNS server.

    If you're doing more domains, powerdns is a great option. I use powerdns with the mysql backend and use mysql replication between locations. You don't really need a lot of hardware either, just get a few virtual servers with different geographic providers.

    I wouldn't worry much about anycast on your own. It will add quite a bit to your costs, when using something like DNSMadeEasy which already does anycast will be far cheaper.
    Ken Robertson | Linked Labs | linkedlabs.com

  13. #13
    Quote Originally Posted by Crothers View Post
    I am required to setup a redundant, multi-location, highly available DNS setup.

    I was thinking of asking my Colo provider about Any/Mulitcast, however that may be overkill.

    I was wondering if anyone else had any ideas on the subject? I would prefer to have an HA setup of some sort..

    So ideas please, my turn up time for this is about ~3-4 months or so, so I have time now to start picking up the pieces and building it in my backroom before deployment.
    You need to carefully define your terms.

    Anycast implies "redundant, multi-location, highly available" but it is not a necessary component.

    If you read and implement the relevant RFC recommendations with any of the popular well known DNS software implementations, you will end up with a DNS system that is "redundant, multi-location, highly available" by definition.

    Anycast is out of your league unless you are willing to go to the next level. That level is usually only populated by specialty service providers.

    If you absolutely must have anycast to hit a checkbox on your worksheet, then go out and buy the whole service from a service provider and be done with it. But, I cannot see anything in your post that says it is needed.
    edgedirector.com
    managed dns global failover and load balance (gslb)
    exactstate.com
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  14. #14
    Join Date
    Mar 2006
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    Reston, VA
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    Quote Originally Posted by plumsauce View Post
    Anycast is out of your league unless you are willing to go to the next level. That level is usually only populated by specialty service providers.
    agree, unless you plan on picking tier1 providers and even then a select few, you must also make sure you have connectivity to _each_ carrier at every location. 8 locations with 100Mbps minimum commits on each tier1, i.e level3 etc roughly guessing a rack worth of gear, routers etc your going to spend 2-3k per site a month just for operational expenses not including the 30-50k per site for hardware. Now multiply this by x locations.

    You can go a head and try to use different carriers at each location, but even using bgp communities, that more than often don't work correctly as intended or not supported at all your anycast network will fail miserably and traffic will not go where you want it to go.


    No one "starting" in this business should bother unless you have a rather strong background and understanding on how the networking aspect works and the DNS aspect works and of course administration of dozens/hundreds of servers basically running in parallel.
    Yellow Fiber Networks
    http://www.yellowfiber.net : Managed Solutions - Colocation - Network Services IPv4/IPv6
    Ashburn/Denver/NYC/Dallas/Chicago Markets Served zak@yellowfiber.net

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