Re: BIND DNS from base vs. pkg

[Steve Rikli <sr%genyosha.net@localhost>]

On Fri, Oct 30, 2026 at 04:42:34PM -0400, Greg Troxel wrote:
> If you find the 9.20 vs 9.18 matters to you, explaining why would be
> useful.  If it's just "I'd like them to be the same so I don't have to
> deal with variation", that's fair enough.

Wrt BIND in particular, I try to follow ISC guidelines. So when they say
9.18.50 is EOL I prefer to avoid it.

Similarly, when ISC says 9.20.30 is recommended (and ESV), I prefer to
use that if possible.

It'd be nice if my BIND servers ran the same version, but from a config
and zone file standpoint, I've rarely had big issues if they're at least
in the same release branch. So NetBSD 9.20.* in NetBSD base is in the
same ballpark as FreeBSD, Alpine, and Debian for me.

More generally, sure it'd be great to run the same recent version of
<package> across all my systems, but I'm a pragmatist too.  :-)  Still,
when a given server has a specific duty, like DNS, I'm likely to be more
particular about that than e.g. screen or vim versions.

> In base, we generally try not to make possibly destablizing changes on
> branches.
> In pkgsrc, we aim to have the most recent version that upstream declares
> as a stable release.  We have older branches if that seems necessary for
> users.

Understood on both counts. To be clear, I'm not criticizing NetBSD here,
simply trying to get back up to speed on what to expect.

> I can see that but I don't think you are suffering from it being in
> base.  If anything, you are troubled by pkgsrc being behind.

I think that puts it pretty well.

I'd like to see 9.20.30 ESV in base, but would be happy to have that
version in pkgsrc if older 9.20.* is considered more appropriate for
base due to stability goals or other needs.

Maybe a followup question would help clarify: how often does something
3rd-party like BIND get upgraded in NetBSD base? E.g. in minor releases,
or only in major releases? I confess I haven't tracked it closely.

It sounds like 9.20.30 in pkgsrc is wip so I have no big complaints.
I may give it a try here myself, even though I'm pretty happy with
binary packages.

Cheers,
sr.