[Dnsmasq-discuss] When would DNSMasq NOT be preferred over something like BIND or djbdns?

Simon Kelley simon at thekelleys.org.uk
Fri Feb 9 23:37:18 GMT 2007


Rune Kock wrote:
> On 2/9/07, Charles Marcus <CMarcus at media-brokers.com> wrote:
> 
>>Question:
>>What would you say are the primary factors that would cause one to
>>consider NOT using DNSMasq, in favor of something heavier like BIND?
> 
> 
> I can think of the following situations:
> 
<snip good reasons>

I think that just about covers the DNS side. For DHCP I'd add.

1) The DHCP configuration system is not as comprehensive and
    flexible as that supplied with ISC dhcpd.

2) Dnsmasq doesn't support DHCP-server failover for high availablity.

3) Dnsmasq will not scale as far is ISC in DHCP transaction rates: for
    example it re-writes the whole lease file after each change rather
    than using ISC append-and-garbage-collect approach. It's also not
    multi-threaded, so it suspends DHCP activity during the 3 second
    delay waiting for the "ping test" when doing address allocation.
    (There are checks to avoid dropping DHCP packets - if the delays get
     too great, dnsmasq abandons ping checking temporarily.)



Dnsmasq isn't as portable as BIND and dhcpd. It supports Linux and *BSD 
and MAC OSX. ISC runs on all those and more besides.


Cheers,

Simon.




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