[dns-operations] BIND performance difference between RHEL 6.4 and FreeBSD 7

[Michael Sinatra]

On 4/23/14 4:57 PM, Doug Barton wrote:
> On 04/23/2014 04:28 PM, Paul Vixie wrote:
>>
>>
>> Doug Barton wrote:
>>> ...
>>>
>>> ... and to Jared's point, I agree that there are serious problems with
>>> FreeBSD, I left the project some time ago in part because I don't
>>> agree with the direction that they've been going. But the underlying
>>> technology is still sound for the most part, and if it works for a
>>> given use case it's worth considering.
>>
>> if you havn't seen freebsd lately, check out 10.0, especially looking at
>> bhyve, pkg, and zfs. seriously.
>
> This isn't the "pick your operating system" mailing list, but I'll
> respond briefly and leave it at that.

It is the dns-operations mailing list, and so the question of which 
operating system platform makes for a good DNS server is in scope.  (I 
agree that not all of the postings in this thread have stayed within 
that scope.)

Many of us continue to use FreeBSD as a DNS server platform and it works 
excellently as such.  It provides the right combination of performance, 
stability, and security, and also provides a diverse code-base from 
Linux and other Un*xes.  It has benefited from robust funding and good 
community support.  We may occasionally disagree with the direction it 
is taking on one thing or another (for example, I don't agree with the 
removal of BIND from the base system in 10.0), but then again, those 
disagreements are normal in FOSS projects, and frankly, they pale in 
comparison with what's going on in Linux-land (systemd, anyone?).

Note also that many of the FreeBSD systems I manage run zfs, and the 
tools like zxfer and the various snapshot managers make for robust 
automated backups.  The other automated tools, like freebsd-update, pkg 
(yes, pkg), and portmaster, work at least as well as the major Linux 
distros' tools (e.g. yum, apt, etc.).  And yeah, I work with both.

> All that said, I'm not saying "Don't use FreeBSD."

I know you weren't, but the tone of the overall thread might cause 
someone to infer the demise of FreeBSD.  Such an inference would be a 
great exaggeration, to paraphrase Mark Twain.

michael

PS. In addition to the cool stuff that Paul mentions in 10.0, you should 
also check out netmap.