Bind 8.2.1 stability problem!

[Mike Mitchell]

Roberto Turriziani writes:
> Hello!
>
> Recently we changed our DNS-Servers from
>    SparcStation-5 96 MB 100MBit-half switched
>    SUN/Solaris 2.5
>    Bind 8.1.2
> to
> HP LPr Pentium 450MHz 256MB 100MBit-full switched
> RedHat 6.0 Kernel 2.2.10
> Bind 8.2.1
> to achive better performance for the about 4500 zones we host.
>
> But instead of better performance, we ran into troubles:
>
> Sometimes bind on our primary server seems to hang. In debugging mode
> the incoming requests are logged, but the daemon doesn't answer
> anything. After a while (between 1 and 5 minutes) it recovers and starts
> to answer queries again.

I've seen the exact same behavior on HP-UX 9.05 and 10.20, for all versions
of Bind 8 that I've tested (Bind 8.1.2, Bind 8.2, and Bind 8.2.1).  I haven't
seen the problem with Bind 4 (Bind 4.8.3, Bind 4.9.3, and Bind 4.9.6).  It
only seems to affect the primary nameservers, not the slave (secondary)
nameservers.  Turning on debugging shows that the nameserver is responding
to queries, it just takes about 30 seconds for each query to complete.

The nameserver is handling several requests per second this way, all requests
taking over 30 seconds.  It will run this way for several minutes, then be
fine.  Running "ndc reload" will fix the problem, though usually it will
reoccur within an hour.  If I terminate and restart named it will run properly
for a day or two.  If named is left alone it will clear itself within a half
hour and won't occur again for a day or two.

My DNS monitor shows the problem has occured 5 times since the beginning
of July, correcting itself at 1999-07-02 08:37:43, 1999-07-06 10:01:38,
1999-07-08 18:46:53, 1999-07-11 04:44:55, and 1999-07-13 05:16:49.
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Mike Mitchell	     "Thunder, lightning, the wind of change is so frightening
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