[Bug 480724] Review Request: djbdns - A Domain Name System by D. J. Bernstein

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https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=480724





--- Comment #45 from Tom Moertel <tom at moertel.com>  2009-08-22 14:41:29 EDT ---
I have inspected the proposed packaging of djbdns and am delighted that
somebody has decided to get it into Fedora.  To help make the package better, I
have a few suggestions.

First, as the package does not use DJB's daemontools to manage the services it
provides, it requires initscripts for that purpose.  Only one initscript is
included in the package,  however, and it is named "djbdns", making unclear
which of the services it controls (it's dnscache).  The initscript for tinydns,
for example, is missing.  Recommendation:  include one initscript per service
and make the names of the initscripts match the services they control.

Second, the package is missing some important parts of djbdns -- axfdns,
walldns, and rbldns, for example.  While these parts are probably used less
often than dnscache or tinydns, they are well established within DJB's bundle,
and most people will expect them to be included in any package calling itself
"djbdns".  Recommendation:  include the missing pieces.

Third, I must agree with Satya Komaragiri about the need for subpackages.  It's
very common to need only one part of djbdns for any particular install, either
dnscache (for a site needing a local, recursive DNS cache), tinydns (for a site
needing a content DNS server to publish its public records), or the tools (for
administration and debugging).  To place all of these in one package will
contribute clutter to the typical install.  (This problem wasn't so bad in
DJB's bundle because it didn't use initscripts, but we do, and installing 5
initscripts when the typical sysadmin will need only 1 seems excessive.) 
Recommendation: split the package into logical subpackages, following Pavel
Lisý's scheme, which makes a lot of sense from an administrator's point of view
(and ought to be immediately understandable to anyone familiar with how to
deploy from DJB's bundle).

Fourth, DJB's bundle relied upon the multilog program from daemontools to
handle logging, whereas our proposed package writes to log files directly.  But
multilog did more than just write to files; it also inserted timestamps, which
our logs lack.  Timestamps are essential in system logs, so we must put them
back in somehow.  Maybe we could use syslog or bring back multilog. 
Recommendation:  Restore the timestamps in logs.

This package is looking great.  I think it's just a few tweaks away from being
both a good Fedora package and a faithful representation of everything that
made DJB's bundle great.  Keep up the good work!

Cheers,
Tom

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