[Pdns-users] BIND to PowerDNS migration advice?

[bert hubert]

On Tue, Aug 01, 2006 at 02:54:32PM -0700, Augie Schwer wrote:

> I am currently thinking of putting PowerDNS on top of our existing
> BIND install and either using two backends (launch=bind,gmysql) or
> just listing the existing BIND install as a recursor on a different
> port (recursor=127.0.0.1:5353); I am thinking that the first might be
> a better option, but I haven't tested it yet.

Not sure if the second is entirely what you want.

The best thing you can probably do is validate that PowerDNS can indeed
parse all your zones. The few points of attention are:

*	complex $include setups;
*	wildcard/CNAME combinations, although it appears PowerDNS is now
		'bug for bug' compatible with BIND in that respect.
*	rare record types (powerdns may not support everything BIND does)

Running dually on zone files and SQL works well, although you might as well
go whole hog directly. The zone parser in zone2sql is identical to that in
the bind backend.

The very coolest way to migrate is not yet possible. The 'dnsreplay' tool
can currently be used to validate the PowerDNS recursor. With some changes,
it could also be used to replay DNS traffic sent to your current setup to
your new PowerDNS setup to compare.

Sadly dnsreplay is not yet outfitted to do such a thing.

We rarely hear about migration problems, it is all not that worrisome an
operation.

Just make sure you have your old configuration on standby should there be
problems.

Good luck!

-- 
http://www.PowerDNS.com      Open source, database driven DNS Software 
http://netherlabs.nl              Open and Closed source services