[dns-operations] Monitoring DNS Servers

[david klein]

On Tue, Jun 7, 2011 at 4:48 AM, Stephane Bortzmeyer <bortzmeyer at nic.fr> wrote:
> On Mon, Jun 06, 2011 at 11:49:19PM -0500,
>  david klein <root at nachtmaus.us> wrote
>  a message of 33 lines which said:
>
>> how do you monitor it? [...] I come from a mostly Cisco and Linux
>> background, so the idea of a platform not having an SNMP agent is a
>> little surprising.
>
> If it is a DNS server, why not monitoring it with a DNS client? (I'm
> pretty sure all the monitoring platforms such as Nagios already have a
> DNS monitor.)
>
> Querying the SNMP agent monitors the SNMP agent, not the service the
> box is supposed to provide.
>


The reason I ask about using SNMP to monitor a DNS server is because a
system or device with a proper SNMP agent will expose information
about the causes of failures, and even degradation that is not
currently causing requests to be dropped, but which may lead to it in
the near future. Tests that run DNS queries are a starting place, but
only tell part of the story, and only tell you once resolution has
failed.



-- 

david t. klein

Cisco Certified Network Associate (CSCO11281885)
Linux Professional Institute Certification (LPI000165615)
Redhat Certified Engineer (805009745938860)

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?