Bind 8 to 9 and upgrade to new box

[Steve Sandau]

Andy Firman wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I have an old FreeBSD 4.10 stable box that is running the
> default Bind 8 and "was" the primary DNS server.
> 
> I have a new FreeBSD 4.10 stable box that is running
> Bind 9 and "is now" the primary DNS server.
> 
> The new IP address has been registered with the registar
> and all is well on the new box.
> 
> The old box still has a bunch of sites on it that I am in
> the process of moving to the new box over the next few months.
> The zone files are all correct in pointing the domains
> to the correct box (IP address).
> 
> On the old box, if I turn off Bind 8 and edit resolv.conf and
> enter the nameserver IP of the new box (primary DNS server),
> it seems to slow down and serve the websites slowly.
> So if I turn Bind 8 back on and put its own IP address in
> /etc/resolv.conf, everything speeds up again.
> The boxes are colo-ed together, and are one IP away from
> each other so the lookups should not be a problem.
> 
> I don't know what other specifics I can give, but this is
> kind of a "big picture" question and am looking for advice
> and ideas on how to solve the problem.
> 

I just noticed a tool called nsping in the OpenBSD ports collection. If 
it is in the FreeBSD collection as well, it may help you troubleshoot 
the problem.

"Nsping uses DNS queries to monitor reachability and operation of 
name-servers, as well as the latency of DNS queries. It does this by 
sending random recursive DNS queries to the nameserver (avoiding the 
effects of DNS caching) and measuring the amount of time between the 
sending of the query and the receipt of the response packet."

I have not used this tool; it just looked like it might be worth a look 
in your situation top check the response to the new server on the old one.

Steve