The Sysadmin’s Daily Grind: Dnsgraph

GRAPH MASTER

Article from Issue 69/2006

Author(s): CHARLY KÜHNAST

A partly overloaded DNS server can slow down all the workstations on the network. Dnsgraph is an early warning system that gives administrators a graph of critical values. Your Dnsgraph charts will help you keep your systems serving names.

Just recently I heard about a memory genius who could remember the value of pi to several thousand decimal figures; at the same time, this person couldn’t explain the practical value of this exercise. People like that don’t need a DNS server; instead they could just memorize a few thousand IP addresses. But normal folks prefer DNS. And if you run a name resolution service yourself, I’m sure you will appreciate Dnsgraph [1]. The project name indicates a similarity with projects such as Mailgraph and Queuegraph, and Dnsgraph is actually based on Mailgraph. The tool parses a file for the status information generated by my Bind 9 DNS server [2], and converts the figures into a graph.

Buy this article as PDF

Express-Checkout as PDF

Price $2.95
(incl. VAT)

Buy Linux Magazine

SINGLE ISSUES

SUBSCRIPTIONS

Print Subs

Digisubs

TABLET & SMARTPHONE APPS

US / Canada

UK / Australia

Related content

Charly's Column

Worms, mail bombs, and users who send multiple megabyte Powerpoint files across the wire give Postfix administrators plenty of reasons to view their charges with a critical eye from time to time.

more »
Charly's Column

Ornithologists already know that magpies don’t really deserve their reputation. The true kleptomaniac in the world of birds is the raven. And it’s worthwhile for data dealers to make the acquaintance of Munin, a monitoring tool named after one fabled raven.

more »
Charly's Column

Network monitors are a dime a dozen, but Nload, which separates incoming and outgoing traffic and draws graphs on the console without X, is unique.

more »
Charly's Column

Some of Charly’s servers run the SSH daemon on port 443 rather than on the standard port 22. If an SSL-capable Apache web server starts causing trouble, his method of settling the dispute is sslh.

more »
Charly's Column

For the longest time, Charly used vi to edit his nameserver's zone data, which isn't too elegant because a mere fat-finger will get you into DNS trouble. Fortunately, NicTool will help ease the pain – even in the midst of a move big enough to kick up a dust storm.

more »

comments powered by Disqus

Visit Our Shop

Trial Subscription

Digital Subscription

Subscribe

Direct Download

Read full article as PDF:

Charly_Column.pdf (91.30 kB)

News

Red Hat Announces OpenShift.io

Red Hat takes its IDE online.
Microsoft Bakes Linux into Windows Server

Microsoft is slowly becoming a Linux vendor.
Fearless Coyote, Linux Kernel 4.11 is Out

The new kernel makes swap implementation more scalable, which will help cloud providers.
Docker Appoints Steve Singh CEO

The new CEO comes from a very strong SaaS background.
Docker Announces Linux Kit and Moby Project

Both projects help organizations build their own containerized systems.
Ubuntu Returns to Gnome as Its Mobile Plans Shatter

Mark Shuttleworth has resumed the position of CEO of Canonical.
Microsoft is Shutting Down CodePlex

Microsoft's open source code hosting platform CodePlex will come to an end after a more than 10-year stint.
Fedora 26 Alpha Released

Comes with Gnome 3.24
Old Linux Kernel Bug Discovered

The bug was introduced back in 2009 and has been lurking around all this time.
OpenSSH 7.5 Released

The new release deprecates the sshd_config UsePrivilegeSeparation option.