Quoting George Michaelson (ggm@apnic.net):
>  
> > Returning to topic, sort of:
> > If a DNS server *requires* 4CPUs and 8GB of RAM to perform at blinding
> > speeds, or even if such a configuration is recommended for DNS, something
> > is very wrong.
...
> 
> You do not need 4CPU/8Gb to run a root DNS server. So the counter-existence
> proof stands. (ISC run dual backed instances on single CPU, 1G memory boxes, for
> the F-root anycast cloud)

No, you don't need, generally.  by the by, the AOL is, or was, as
far as I recall, the running the highest rate DNS servers.

My main point being that for $8k you can get a lot of machine.
BIND9 actually DOES take advantage of 4 processors on a well threaded
OS.

So lets add signed zones and requests and such and suddenly, having
a beefy machine is nice.  Lots of RAM and the disks don't get hit
much.


As for not having a monolithic partition?  Best practices
covers that.  My /usr is readonly.  Quite happily.

Had a machine crash on a fairly busy server with a monopartition.
No freaking idea what all the lost+found files were.  Chunks of the
OS behaving badly.  With a 50MB / (rarely written and actually RO
on several machines), and /var/ (written to often) it would have
been less of a disaster.  I'd expect lots of open /var files on
this system.  Instead had 14GB of muck and a reinstall.