want to setup a home DNS server... how powerful does the system need to be?

[xyyz]

I have a sparc2 w/ an 80mhz wetiek powerup... along with 64mb and a 1.2 gb hd.

i have redhat 6.2 installed on it right now, but that will be purged for either Solaris 2.6 or Solaris 8.

will this machine be enough to act as the home DNS server... or should I consider my Sparc20?

 

[ttn1]

Well, someone can correct me if they think I am wrong, but I think that machine should
be more than enough for a small home network DNS server. I assume your home network
will have static look up tables, which won't take much power to search.
I ran my caching DNS server on a 180 MediaGX cpu for a year. MediaGX is slooowww...
It was fine and it was also running a mailserver and webserver. The only reason I
upgraded, was that I started to work with dynamic webpages which needed a bit more
horsepower.

 

[Nothinman]

DNS requires very little CPU time, unless you have hundreds of people using it or hammer it on purpose =)

My current DNS/DHCP server is a Ultra1 167Mhz, and both daemons are idle 99% of the time.

 

[Mucman]

Our work DNS servers (caching only) running DJBDNS handle over 100 computers and a 2 mailservers. They are both 486 66MHZ DX2 running OpenBSD. They used to crash under BIND from all the requests but it can handle them all quite nicely.

For home I got DJBDNS running on a P150 that is also running SAMBA which serves 50Gigs of mp3s to our house and is running FTP software as well.

 

[n0cmonkey]

Stay away from Solaris 7/8. They are much better for ultra sparc processors. Stick with Linux or go with OpenBSD/NetBSD. They will run better on the slower processors. RAM is much more important than cpu time and 64MB should be fine for small home DNS servers.

 

[Rickten]

mind if I ask what exactly a dns server does? And what would be the advantages of having one in my house?

 

[n0cmonkey]

<< mind if I ask what exactly a dns server does? >>



Yes, but Ill tell you anyways. It translates domain names (ie forums.anandtech.com) to ip addresses (ie 10.2.2.3). Take a look online for more information.



<< And what would be the advantages of having one in my house? >>



I run one in my home so I can do reverse mappings and whatnot for my home network. For most people there is no reason for most people to run one, I just like the control and the need to keep my skills sharper than they would be without it.