[Pdns-users] Building the latest version from source...

[Brad Knowles]

Folks,

	The last time I had tried to test PowerDNS, I didn't have much 
luck.  I ended up not being able to include a lot of information 
about it in my slides for my LISA 2002/RIPE-44 talk.

	Well, I'm updating this material, and I'd like to try to make 
sure that I do a better job this time.  I know that FreeBSD has a 
port definition for 2.9.16, but in order to make my examples more 
platform-agnostic, I'd like to build from source, and preferably with 
the latest version.

	Now, the last time, I build PowerDNS with a PostgreSQL back-end, 
and although I technically got things to work, they didn't work well 
at all.  I don't know if I had a bad PostgreSQL installation or 
configuration, or if the problem with PowerDNS itself, or the 
interface between PowerDNS and PostgreSQL.  At the time, I was told 
that most installations were going with MySQL, but I didn't have time 
to re-install.


	Now, I've looked over the build instructions at 
<http://doc.powerdns.com/pdns-users-faq.html>, and the wiki-faq at 
<http://wiki.powerdns.com/projects/trac/wiki/TodoList>, and I checked 
the README in the 2.9.18 source tarball.  I've also done a bit of 
searching in the archives, but have not yet been able to find 
anything obviously relevant.

	In all the reading I've done, I didn't see any strong indications 
as to what the preferred operations environment is, whether that's 
still MySQL or now PostgreSQL, or maybe LDAP, or perhaps something 
else has become the new preferred configuration.

	I did notice that the bind2backend is now the default (see 
<http://mailman.powerdns.com/pipermail/pdns-users/2005-September/002590.html>), 
and followed the link to the wiki HACKING page at 
<http://wiki.powerdns.com/projects/trac/wiki/HACKING>, but I'm not 
sure if I should be trying to build the latest out of Subversion, or 
if I'm okay sticking with 2.9.18.


	Of course, a big part of my testing will be performance-oriented, 
and my previous testing showed that even remarkably low-end boxes can 
get surprising levels of performance, with the right software.


	Any help or advice you can provide will be appreciated.  Thanks!

-- 
Brad Knowles, <brad at stop.mail-abuse.org>

"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little
temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."

     -- Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790), reply of the Pennsylvania
     Assembly to the Governor, November 11, 1755

   SAGE member since 1995.  See <http://www.sage.org/> for more info.