[Dnsmasq-discuss] redundant/resiliant dnsmasq servers?

[Kurt H Maier]

On Sat, Mar 26, 2016 at 11:06:39AM +0100, Matthias Andree wrote:
> Yes, but that's not the trigger for the original inquiry - it was
> explicitly about a software crash:
> <http://lists.thekelleys.org.uk/pipermail/dnsmasq-discuss/2016q1/010405.html>

No it wasn't.  Read the message you linked.  It's said the server
crashed; software or hardware failure is not specified.  This is a moot
point; I'm not really sure why you're offended at the idea that someone
may want redundant services.

To the original point:  it's eminently possible to run dnsmasq on a
server, have it installed on a second server, and install drbd on both
machines.  You can use heartbeat or other HA tools to fire up dnsmasq on
the secondary server if the primary fails.  This can be set up in a way
similar to https://help.ubuntu.com/community/HighlyAvailableNFS but with
dnsmasq as the service specified instead of nfs-kernel-server.

There are different approaches to this idea, obviously; I've had good
luck using CARP on OpenBSD to multiplex back to two dnsmasq instances
who both mounted a shared filesystem via iSCSI.  Again, the trick is to
be running software like heartbeat that is capable of detecting failure
of the primary node and firing up the secondary failover service.


khm