Yellowdog and running a BIND/DNS Server

[Eric Dunbar]

[Reply is OT]

On 5/24/05, Paul Schock <pauls at nofear.com> wrote:
>  
>  
> 
> My org is looking to do a little network revamping and our first step is
> take down our older Microsoft DNS servers and replace them with something a
> little more stable and secure. Unfortunately, we do not have the money to
> run out and buy all new servers, we happen to have a couple extra apple
> machines left-over from our art dept (Fairly nice G4 and G3); I was curious
> to know if anyone here had experience running a DNS server (specifically
> BIND) using the apple architecture? Would you recommend yellowdog for this

YDL should function AOK as a DNS/BIND server. If you're comfortable
with 100% CLUI installs you'll find NetBSD to be a good solution as
well (basically any stable *nix should do).

Anyway, here's the off-topic thought (may or may not apply to your situation).

Oftentimes orgs try to "re-use" old hardware by running Linux/BSD to
save a bit of cash. When you consider the expense of salaries related
to setting up the "free" software I suspect it would've often been
cheaper to buy a "solution" and install it rather than setting it up
yourself. If your salary is an item, you may find that it'd be more
cost-effective to buy the latest OS X server for the G4 or a used OS X
server CD for the G3 (of course, in the short-sighted world of many
managers, it's far more acceptable to "waste" salaries than to waste
"money" (how they differ I don't understand but it seems managers
do... I guess that's why they're managers ;-)...

for e.g., to get a piece $200 piece of software or hardware to improve
the efficiency of my work (data manipulation & stats analysis) I'd
have to jump through thousands of dollars of purchasing requests
(salaries spent assessing requests)... likewise, if my employer spent
$500 on each employee with a computer they'd undoubtedly achieve
efficiencies that would result in a very rapid payback on
investment... ah well, that's why I'm not management (yet ;-).

Eric.