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BIND Resource Requirements</title> <meta name="generator" content="DocBook XSL Stylesheets V1.71.1"> <link rel="start" href="Bv9ARM.html" title="BIND 9 Administrator Reference Manual"> <link rel="up" href="Bv9ARM.html" title="BIND 9 Administrator Reference Manual"> <link rel="prev" href="Bv9ARM.ch01.html" title="Chapter 1. Introduction"> <link rel="next" href="Bv9ARM.ch03.html" title="Chapter 3. Name Server Configuration"> </head> <body bgcolor="white" text="black" link="#0000FF" vlink="#840084" alink="#0000FF"> <div class="navheader"> <table width="100%" summary="Navigation header"> <tr><th colspan="3" align="center">Chapter 2. <acronym class="acronym">BIND</acronym> Resource Requirements</th></tr> <tr> <td width="20%" align="left"> <a accesskey="p" href="Bv9ARM.ch01.html">Prev</a> </td> <th width="60%" align="center"> </th> <td width="20%" align="right"> <a accesskey="n" href="Bv9ARM.ch03.html">Next</a> </td> </tr> </table> <hr> </div> <div class="chapter" lang="en"> <div class="titlepage"><div><div><h2 class="title"> <a name="Bv9ARM.ch02"></a>Chapter 2. <acronym class="acronym">BIND</acronym> Resource Requirements</h2></div></div></div> <div class="toc"> <p><b>Table of Contents</b></p> <dl> <dt><span class="sect1"><a href="Bv9ARM.ch02.html#id2567594">Hardware requirements</a></span></dt> <dt><span class="sect1"><a href="Bv9ARM.ch02.html#id2567621">CPU Requirements</a></span></dt> <dt><span class="sect1"><a href="Bv9ARM.ch02.html#id2567634">Memory Requirements</a></span></dt> <dt><span class="sect1"><a href="Bv9ARM.ch02.html#id2567729">Name Server Intensive Environment Issues</a></span></dt> <dt><span class="sect1"><a href="Bv9ARM.ch02.html#id2567739">Supported Operating Systems</a></span></dt> </dl> </div> <div class="sect1" lang="en"> <div class="titlepage"><div><div><h2 class="title" style="clear: both"> <a name="id2567594"></a>Hardware requirements</h2></div></div></div> <p> <acronym class="acronym">DNS</acronym> hardware requirements have traditionally been quite modest. For many installations, servers that have been pensioned off from active duty have performed admirably as <acronym class="acronym">DNS</acronym> servers. </p> <p> The DNSSEC features of <acronym class="acronym">BIND</acronym> 9 may prove to be quite CPU intensive however, so organizations that make heavy use of these features may wish to consider larger systems for these applications. <acronym class="acronym">BIND</acronym> 9 is fully multithreaded, allowing full utilization of multiprocessor systems for installations that need it. </p> </div> <div class="sect1" lang="en"> <div class="titlepage"><div><div><h2 class="title" style="clear: both"> <a name="id2567621"></a>CPU Requirements</h2></div></div></div> <p> CPU requirements for <acronym class="acronym">BIND</acronym> 9 range from i486-class machines for serving of static zones without caching, to enterprise-class machines if you intend to process many dynamic updates and DNSSEC signed zones, serving many thousands of queries per second. </p> </div> <div class="sect1" lang="en"> <div class="titlepage"><div><div><h2 class="title" style="clear: both"> <a name="id2567634"></a>Memory Requirements</h2></div></div></div> <p> The memory of the server has to be large enough to fit the cache and zones loaded off disk. The <span><strong class="command">max-cache-size</strong></span> option can be used to limit the amount of memory used by the cache, at the expense of reducing cache hit rates and causing more <acronym class="acronym">DNS</acronym> traffic. Additionally, if additional section caching (<a href="Bv9ARM.ch06.html#acache" title="Additional Section Caching">the section called “Additional Section Caching”</a>) is enabled, the <span><strong class="command">max-acache-size</strong></span> option can be used to limit the amount of memory used by the mechanism. It is still good practice to have enough memory to load all zone and cache data into memory — unfortunately, the best way to determine this for a given installation is to watch the name server in operation. After a few weeks the server process should reach a relatively stable size where entries are expiring from the cache as fast as they are being inserted. </p> </div> <div class="sect1" lang="en"> <div class="titlepage"><div><div><h2 class="title" style="clear: both"> <a name="id2567729"></a>Name Server Intensive Environment Issues</h2></div></div></div> <p> For name server intensive environments, there are two alternative configurations that may be used. The first is where clients and any second-level internal name servers query a main name server, which has enough memory to build a large cache. This approach minimizes the bandwidth used by external name lookups. The second alternative is to set up second-level internal name servers to make queries independently. In this configuration, none of the individual machines needs to have as much memory or CPU power as in the first alternative, but this has the disadvantage of making many more external queries, as none of the name servers share their cached data. </p> </div> <div class="sect1" lang="en"> <div class="titlepage"><div><div><h2 class="title" style="clear: both"> <a name="id2567739"></a>Supported Operating Systems</h2></div></div></div> <p> ISC <acronym class="acronym">BIND</acronym> 9 compiles and runs on a large number of Unix-like operating systems and on Microsoft Windows Server 2003 and 2008, and Windows XP and Vista. For an up-to-date list of supported systems, see the README file in the top level directory of the BIND 9 source distribution. </p> </div> </div> <div class="navfooter"> <hr> <table width="100%" summary="Navigation footer"> <tr> <td width="40%" align="left"> <a accesskey="p" href="Bv9ARM.ch01.html">Prev</a> </td> <td width="20%" align="center"> </td> <td width="40%" align="right"> <a accesskey="n" href="Bv9ARM.ch03.html">Next</a> </td> </tr> <tr> <td width="40%" align="left" valign="top">Chapter 1. Introduction </td> <td width="20%" align="center"><a accesskey="h" href="Bv9ARM.html">Home</a></td> <td width="40%" align="right" valign="top"> Chapter 3. Name Server Configuration</td> </tr> </table> </div> </body> </html>