Memory used by caching name server?

[Rob]

Olaf Hoyer wrote:
> On Fri, 4 Jun 2004, Rob wrote:
> 
> 
>>No change at all in memory usage. If named keeps its cache in memory,
>>why do I not see any changes of available swap space when starting named?
>>
>>Or does named claim memory on the fly, as it is caching?
>>If so, how can I find out what is the maximum it can claim on my machine?
> 
> 
> 
> Hi!
> 
> named claims memory on the fly.
> On Solaris, I have bind 8 seen claiming about 800MB RAM for its caching
> database, being the resolver for the machine that creates from http-logs
> colorful pictures and other fancy things...

Waaauw, that sounds rather dangerous to me. I have a caching nameserver
running on an old Pentium-I with 32 Mb of ram (48 Mb swap). I am still
using it in a testing enviroment, moderately using the named's cache.
So far total memory usage by the OS is very low (swap is hardly used).

I wonder if named would eat up all the ram in a production enviroment.
Can't imagine that, actually. Nowhere I have seen warnings against
such disaster. But then there is this option for the named configuration
file, that limits the cache memory usage.....

Elsewhere, I have read that named uses 1 Mb maximum by default. But
I read that in an out-dated document. I assume meanwhile things have
changed/improved.

Rob.