FW: BIND version 9.0.0 Beta 1 Available

[OFriedrichs () SECURITY-FOCUS COM (Oliver Friedrichs)]

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- -----Original Message-----
From: David R. Conrad [mailto:David.Conrad () nominum com]
Sent: Friday, February 04, 2000 5:39 PM
Subject: BIND version 9.0.0 Beta 1 Available

[apologies for possible duplicates]

Announcing the release of BIND version 9 Beta 1.

ISC is proud to announce the public availability of BIND version 9
Beta 1.
This is an early beta release, not intended for production use.  Most
core
functionality is present, but significant work remains to be
completed.

BIND version 9 beta 1 is available from:

        ftp://ftp.isc.org/isc/bind9/9.0.0b1/bind-9.0.0b1.tar.gz

PGP signature:

        ftp://ftp.isc.org/isc/bind9/9.0.0b1/bind-9.0.0b1.tar.gz.asc

Three new mailing lists have been created:

        bind9-bugs () isc org:  for submitting BINDv9 bugs/enhancements
        bind9-workers () isc org:       for developer discussions about BINDv9
        bind9-users () isc org: for general discussions about BINDv9

To subscribe bind9-workers or bind9-users, send a message with the
word
"subscribe" to bind9-workers-request () isc org or
bind9-users-request () isc org
respectively.  Note that these mailing lists are separate from the
lists for
discussing BIND version 8 or earlier.

Enclosed is the README file included with the distribution kit.

Enjoy,
- -drc
Executive Director, ISC
- --------
BIND 9

        BIND version 9 is a major rewrite of nearly all aspects of the
        underlying BIND architecture. This re-architecting of BIND was
        necessitated by the expected demands of:

                - Domain name system growth, particularly in very large
                  zones such as .COM
                - Protocol enhancements necessary to securely query and
                  update zones
                - Protocol enhancements necessary to take advantage of
                  certain architectural features of IP version 6

        These demands implied performance requirements that were not
        necessarily easy to attain with the BIND version 8
        architecture.  In particular, BIND must not only be able to
        run on multi-processor multi-threaded systems, but must take
        full advantage of the performance enhancements these
        architectures can provide. In addition, the underlying data
        storage architecture of BIND version 8 does not lend itself to
        implementing alternative back end databases, such as would be
        desirable for the support of multi-gigabyte zones. As such
        zones are easily foreseeable in the relatively near future,
        the data storage architecture needed revision. The feature
        requirements for BIND version 9 included:

                - Scalability
                        Thread safety
                        Multi-processor scalability
                        Support for very large zones

                - Security
                        Support for DNSSEC
                        Support for TSIG
                        Auditability (code and operation)
                        Firewall support (split DNS)

                - Portability

                - Maintainability

                - Protocol Enhancements
                        IXFR, DDNS, Notify, EDNS0
                        Improved standards conformance

                - Operational enhancements
                        High availability and reliability
                        Support for alternative back end databases

                - IP version 6 support
                        IPv6 resource records (A6, DNAME, etc.)
                        Bitstring labels
                        APIs

        BIND version 9 development has been underwritten by the following
        organizations:

                Stichting NLNet - NLNet Foundation
                Sun Microsystems, Inc.
                Hewlett Packard
                Compaq Computer Corporation
                IBM
                Process Software Corporation
                Silicon Graphics, Inc.
                Network Associates, Inc.
                U.S. Defense Information Systems Agency
                USENIX Association

BIND 9.0.0b1

        BIND 9.0.0b1 is the first public release of BIND 9 code.  It will
        be most useful to advanced users working with IPv6 or DNSSEC.

        BIND 9.0.0b1 is not functionally complete, and is not a release
        candidate for BIND 9.0.0.  The ISC anticipates a number of
additional
        beta releases between now and May, when BIND 9.0.0 is scheduled to
        be released.

        The ISC does not recommend using BIND 9.0.0b1 for "production"
        services.

        We hope users of BIND 9.0.0b1 will provide feedback, bug fixes, and
        enhancements.  If you are not in a position to do so, it would
        probably be better to wait until subsequent releases.

        Much of the core technology planned for BIND 9.0.0 is in this beta
        release.  Some of the highlights are:

                IPv6

                        Support for bitstring labels, DNAME, and A6 records.

                        IPv6-aware resolver (follows A6 chains, can use IPv6
to
                        talk to other nameservers).

                        The nameserver listens on an IPv6 socket.

                DNSSEC

                        All new RR types supported.

                        The server generates DNSSEC responses for secure
zones.

                EDNS0

                        DNS messages using UDP have been limited to 512
                        bytes.  This is too small for DNSSEC replies, whose
                        signature and key records can be large.  EDNS0
allows
                        larger UDP messages to be sent.
                
                        EDNS0 is understood by the server, and used by the
                        resolver.

        Some of the more significant items that will be implemented or
        enhanced in a future beta are

                DNSSEC validation

                        The server does not currently validate DNSSEC
                        signatures.

                Notify

                        Notify is not yet implemented.

                Configuration File

                        Some config file items are not yet implemented.
                        See doc/misc/options for a summary of the current
                        status.

                Selective Forwarding

                Documentation

                        Future releases will contain a lot more
documentation,
                        but a preliminary version of the Administrator's
                        Reference Manual is in the doc/arm subdirectory.

Building

        BIND 9 currently requires a UNIX system with an ANSI C compiler,
        basic POSIX support, and a good pthreads implementation.

        We've had successful builds and tests on the following systems

                AIX 4.3
                COMPAQ Tru64 UNIX 4.0D
                HP-UX 11
                IRIX64 6.5
                NetBSD current (with "unproven" pthreads)
                Red Hat Linux 6.0, 6.1
                Solaris 2.6, 7, 8 (beta)

        To build, just

                ./configure
                make

        "make install" will install "named" and the various BIND 9
libraries.
        By default, installation is into /usr/local, but this can be changed
        with the "--prefix" option when running "configure".

        Shared libraries will be built if "--with-libtool" is added to the
        "configure" command.

        Building with gcc is not supported, unless gcc is the vendor's usual
        compiler (e.g. the various BSD systems, Linux).

        Parts of the library can be tested by running "make test" from the
        bin/tests subdirectory.

Bug Reports and Mailing Lists

        Bugs reports should be sent to

                bind9-bugs () isc org

        To join the BIND 9 Users mailing list, send mail to

                bind9-users-request () isc org

        If you're planning on making changes to the BIND 9 source
        code, you might want to join the BIND 9 Workers mailing list.
        Send mail to

                bind9-workers-request () isc org

"named" command line options

        -c <config_file>

        -d <debug_level>

        -f                              Run in the foreground.

        -N <number_of_cpus>             

        -t <directory>                  Chroot to <directory> before
running.

        -u <username>                   Run as user <username> after binding
                                        to privileged ports.

        Use of the "-t" option while still running as "root" doesn't
        enhance security on most systems.  The way chroot() is defined
        allows a process with root privileges to escape the chroot jail.

        The "-u" option is not currently useful on Linux.  Linux threads
        are actually processes sharing a common address space.  An
unfortunate
        side effect of this is that some system calls, e.g. setuid() that
        in a typical pthreads environment would affect all threads only
affect
        the calling thread/process on Linux.  The good news is that BIND 9
        uses the Linux kernel's capability mechanism to drop all root
        powers except the ability to bind() to a privileged port.

        On systems with more than one CPU, the "-N" option should be used
        to indicate how many CPUs there are.

Note to Programmers

        The APIs for the libraries in BIND 9 are not yet frozen.
        We expect the existing library interfaces in the release to be
        quite stable, however, and unless we've specifically indicated that
        an interface is temporary, we don't anticipate major changes in
        future releases.

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