The sys admin's daily grind – Pdnsd
Short-Term Memory
Cache it, if you can! When the latencies of his Internet connection seem to take longer than Napoleon's reign, sys admin Charly comes up with a solution for name resolution.
It is always annoying when I need to use Internet via a satellite route. The latency is really bad. To counteract this, I use caching wherever I can. My choice of cache for DNS requests is Pdnsd [1]. More or less any fat distribution will have the lean and fast daemon in its collection. When launched, the daemon parses the content of /etc/hosts and stores it in its cache. Any DNS requests that I make are added.
By default, the cache is 2MB. If you have built a very long /etc/hosts throughout your IT landscape, you can modify the cache size in /etc/pdnsd.conf. The matching option resides in the global section. It goes by the name of perm_cache and expects the size in bytes – I use 8192. By the way, the option is named perm_cache because the cache not only resides in RAM but also on the disk. In other words, Pdnsd does not need to build the cache from scratch after a reboot.
In the global configuration section, you will find other central settings. One setting that is very important is:
[...]
Buy this article as PDF
(incl. VAT)
Buy Linux Magazine
US / Canada
UK / Australia
Subscribe to our Linux Newsletters
Find Linux and Open Source Jobs
Subscribe to our ADMIN Newsletters
Support Our Work
Linux Magazine content is made possible with support from readers like you. Please consider contributing when you’ve found an article to be beneficial.
News
-
Fedora Continues 32-Bit Support
In a move that should come as a relief to some portions of the Linux community, Fedora will continue supporting 32-bit architecture.
-
Linux Kernel 6.17 Drops bcachefs
After a clash over some late fixes and disagreements between bcachefs's lead developer and Linus Torvalds, bachefs is out.
-
ONLYOFFICE v9 Embraces AI
Like nearly all office suites on the market (except LibreOffice), ONLYOFFICE has decided to go the AI route.
-
Two Local Privilege Escalation Flaws Discovered in Linux
Qualys researchers have discovered two local privilege escalation vulnerabilities that allow hackers to gain root privileges on major Linux distributions.
-
New TUXEDO InfinityBook Pro Powered by AMD Ryzen AI 300
The TUXEDO InfinityBook Pro 14 Gen10 offers serious power that is ready for your business, development, or entertainment needs.
-
Danish Ministry of Digital Affairs Transitions to Linux
Another major organization has decided to kick Microsoft Windows and Office to the curb in favor of Linux.
-
Linux Mint 20 Reaches EOL
With Linux Mint 20 at its end of life, the time has arrived to upgrade to Linux Mint 22.
-
TuxCare Announces Support for AlmaLinux 9.2
Thanks to TuxCare, AlmaLinux 9.2 (and soon version 9.6) now enjoys years of ongoing patching and compliance.
-
Go-Based Botnet Attacking IoT Devices
Using an SSH credential brute-force attack, the Go-based PumaBot is exploiting IoT devices everywhere.
-
Plasma 6.5 Promises Better Memory Optimization
With the stable Plasma 6.4 on the horizon, KDE has a few new tricks up its sleeve for Plasma 6.5.