monthly archive

BIND 9.9 - why should you care?

BIND 9.9 is a new release of the gold standard for DNS servers on the Internet. It builds on a tried and trusted platform that has been evolving and maturing over more than 10 years and has kept adding new powerful and useful features with each new release.

In BIND 9.9 we have introduce several new features that can make a difference to how you operate your DNS service, no matter what size of an installation you have. Here is a brief rundown of why you should care about this new version:

Improved performance

TechWomen Mentor - The Power of Mentoring - Looking Forward

I was so honored to participate in the TechWomen mentoring program in the summer of 2011. Meeting and working with my mentee, Sanae Baatti from Morocco, was a life changing experience. I wrote some about the TechWomen experience last summer. I was deeply honored as well, to travel to Morocco last fall with a state department sponsored TechWomen mentor and mentee delegation.

Routing configuration over DHCPv6

Currently the DHCPv6 protocol does not allow the provisioning of any routing-related information to hosts. A new proposal is addressing this shortcoming. The draft draft-ietf-mif-dhcpv6-route-option defines a mechanism for delivering routing information over the DHCPv6 protocol. This article explains core concepts and explains how to use the ISC DHCP software to deliver such information.

BIND 9.9.0b2 -- a feature update

Today, ISC is publishing a new beta release of BIND 9.9.0.  As several new features have been added since the feature preview I posted on the occasion of the first alpha release, it would seem to be a good time for an update.

Protecting Intellectual Property is Good; Mandatory DNS Filtering is Bad

It has been about six months since I got together with four of my friends from the DNS world and we co-authored a white paper which explains the technical problems with mandated DNS filtering. The legislation we were responding to was S. 968, also called the PROTECT-IP act, which was introduced this year in the U. S. Senate. By all accounts we can expect a similar U. S. House of Representatives bill soon, so we've written a letter to both the House and Senate, renewing and updating our concerns.

Other Uses for Secure DNS

In the October 2011 issue of the Usenix Associations ";login:" newsletter, I published an article entitled "Other Uses for Secure DNS", with special attention to the IETF DANE working group and the proposed protocol for replacing the X.509 certificate authority system with a secure and scalable system based on Secure DNS.

A reprint of article is attached below.

TechWoman in Marrakesh-an October '11 update

As I wrote in June (link to my last techwomen blog), I've been deeply honored this year to participate in the inaugural round of the TechWomen initiative, a program of the US State Department, as a technical mentor.

Origin ASN for Anycasted Services

 There is a new draft from the IETF GROW working group that attempts to standardize how Anycasted services manage their routing announcements.  The draft can be found at:

ftp://ftp.rfc-editor.org/in-notes/internet-drafts/draft-ietf-grow-unique-origin-as-01.txt

Before commenting directly on the draft a review of how ISC operates the F-Root Anycast network is in order.

DNSSEC Key Management Best Practices (Part 3 of 3)

Don't wait until it is too late! Secure your DNS NOW!

Internet Systems Consortium (ISC) - the industry's core drivers of DNSSEC deployment will help you step by step to secure your DNS infrastructure. Please join us for the third of a series DNSSEC talks.

Date and Time: We will present this webinar twice to maximize time zone coverage.

ISC BIND 9.9.0a1 -- feature preview

Yesterday afternoon, ISC published the first alpha release of BIND 9.9.0. This is an early technology preview, showing off some of the work we've been doing in BIND 9.

There will be more new features added in later alpha releases, but here's what's ready to debut now...