MaraDNS
A security-aware DNS server
      
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MaraDNS roadmap

Goals for the next release of MaraDNS.

I am, slowly but surely, working on the next release of MaraDNS. The next release of MaraDNS will be a 1.2 release.

I am committed to making sure that almost any configuration file that works with MaraDNS 1.0 will work in all subsequent MaraDNS releases without modification. In particular, the only changes to a mararc file that one may have to do when upgrading to the newer stable release of MaraDNS involve mararc files with incorrectly spelled mararc variables.

I have a number of new features for the next release of MaraDNS already implemented in the 1.1 branch, including:

  • A tool, called duende that can daemonize MaraDNS or any other non-daemonizing program, outputting the program's standard output to syslog.
  • The ability to bind to multiple IP addresses.
  • A new zone file format that works side-by-side with the MaraDNS 1.0 zone file format.
  • Full support for processing DNS records over TCP.
  • The addition of a += operator to the mararc file parser, so that long strings may be split up.
  • It is now possible to have a default zonefile with stars at the end of hostnames
  • It is possible to compile the server without recursive support, making the maradns binary 20% smaller and not needing to be linked to the pthread library.
Goals for future 1.1.xx releases:
  • A special DOS surivial mode which resoves hostnames as quickly as possible at the expense of not supporting some DNS features (such as CNAME records or star records)
  • Better RFC compliance: Have "any" records actually return all records; have the rcode in udpnotfound reflect whether we have any record for the host name in question. Disable this for people who need to more quickly load a lot of host names.
  • Cname records should point back for A, AAAA, and PTR records, not just A records in the authoritative half.
  • Document: Dangling CNAMEs and how to work around them (this should also be documented in the 1.0 branch); how to set up a default zonefile
  • Test, debug, test, debug, and test some more.
  • Have the install script check for previous MaraDNS installs; in particular, it shouldn't overwrite old mararc files nor any zone files in /etc/maradns (it looks like this is already done, but double-check)
- Sam (2005.05.21)