Name resolution performance in BIND9

[Sean Page]

Greetings list.

I am running versions of FreeBSD from 4.9.x to 4.10 p3. Let's say for the
sake of argument that we're dealing with FreeBSD 4.10-RELEASE-p2. I am
finding that BIND9 (installed to replace the base install of BIND) is taking
from 4-8 seconds to resolve a name that isn't cached, where the same lookup
on BIND8 will occur in less than a second. I've tested on a half a dozen
servers split between the 2 versions and the results are always the same.
Some client applications are timing out with this kind of delay. I recently
updated to BIND 9.3.0 hoping to help the problem to no avail. Has anyone
else been experiencing this?
Any help would be greatly appreciated.

TIA
Sean.


Named.conf file:

// $Id: named.conf,v 1.5 1998/12/23 06:06:13 dillon Exp $
//
// Refer to the named(8) man page for details.  If you are ever going
// to setup a primary server, make sure you've understood the hairy
// details of how DNS is working.  Even with simple mistakes, you can
// break connectivity for affected parties, or cause huge amount of
// useless Internet traffic.

controls {
	inet 127.0.0.1 allow {127.0.0.1;} keys {"key";};
};

key "key" {
        algorithm       hmac-md5;
        secret
"xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx";
};



options {
	allow-recursion {192.168.0.0/24; localhost; };
	directory ".";
	/*
	 * If there is a firewall between you and nameservers you want
	 * to talk to, you might need to uncomment the query-source
	 * directive below.  Previous versions of BIND always asked
	 * questions using port 53, but BIND 8.1 uses an unprivileged
	 * port by default.
	 */
	query-source address * port 53;
	version "None of your business bub";
};


// In addition to the "forwarders" clause, you can force your name
// server to never initiate queries of its own, but always ask its
// forwarders only, by enabling the following line:
//
//      forward only;

// If you've got a DNS server around at your upstream provider, enter
// its IP address here, and enable the line below.  This will make you
// benefit from its cache, thus reduce overall DNS traffic in the Internet.
/*
	forwarders {
		127.0.0.1;
	};
*/

	/*
	 * If running in a sandbox, you may have to specify a different
	 * location for the dumpfile.
	 */
//	dump-file "var/named_dump.db";

// Note: the following will be supported in a future release.
/*
host { any; } {
	topology {
		127.0.0.0/8;
	};
};
*/

// Setting up secondaries is way easier and the rough picture for this
// is explained below.
//
// If you enable a local name server, don't forget to enter 127.0.0.1
// into your /etc/resolv.conf so this server will be queried first.
// Also, make sure to enable it in /etc/rc.conf.


acl internal { 192.168.0/24; };

view internal {

	match-clients { internal; };

	zone "." {
		type hint;
		file "root.zone";
	};

	zone "0.0.127.IN-ADDR.ARPA" {
		type master;
		file "localhost.rev";
	};

	zone "0.168.192.IN-ADDR.ARPA" {
		type master;
		file "0.168.192.in-addr.arpa";
	};

	zone "domain.net" {
		type master;
		file "db.domain.net.internal";
	};
};

view external {

	match-clients { any; };

	zone "." {
		type hint;
		file "root.zone";
	};

	zone "0.0.127.IN-ADDR.ARPA" {
		type master;
		file "localhost.rev";
	};

	zone "domain.net" {
		type master;
		file "db.domain.net";
		allow-transfer {111.222.333.4; 199.99.99.9; };
	};

};





Sean Page
Network Analyst, Internet Services
Information Technology Services
Edmonton Public Schools
Phone: (780) 429-8206
http://its.epsb.ca <http://its.epsb.ca> 
Supporting teaching and learning through the effective use of Technology.