MaraDNS changelog

maradns-0.9.18:

Fixed a bug in askmara where non-ASCII characters were not properly replaced by escape sequences.

Updated EJ documentation tools so that they can now generate webpages in the same format as the web pages on www.maradns.org.

(2002.03.25)

maradns-0.9.17:

Added a minor new feature (since it was trivial to add, and since it is a feature which greatly expands the functionality that MaraDNS has): upstream_servers. This allows MaraDNS to be used to contact other recursive servers when run in recursive mode.

Further bugfixing and revision of the debug.hostname tool; it now will not get stuck in endless loops trying to resolve a given hostname.

(2002.03.14)

maradns-0.9.16:

Converted encoding of all files in the MaraDNS source tree from ISO 8859-1 to UTF-8 (with the exception of one file in the utf8 directory which is supposed to be ISO 8859-1 data). Fixed EJ tools so that they can work on a current (as of early 2002; RedHat 7.2) Linux system using the UTF-8 encoding without undue hassle.

Fixed bug in debug.hostname where it would not resolve host names in certain circumstances.

(2002.03.12)

maradns-0.9.15:

Added '-n' option to askmara so askmara can send the same kinds of DNS queries that recursive DNS servers send out (DNS queries that do not ask for recursion)

Fixed bug where 'make install' would overwrite /etc/rc.d/init.d/maradns

Changed maxprocs limit to 200 and made it so exceeding maxprocs does not cause MaraDNS to stop; instead maxprocs is reset to 200.

(2002.03.06)

maradns-0.9.14:

Rewrote debug.hostname tool; this will allow me to set up the testbed to find the more obscure MaraDNS bugs.

(2002.03.03)

maradns-0.9.13:

Fixed bug where debug_msg_level could only be changed if recursion was enabled.

Changed stress testing simulation to simulate network lag in processing DNS replies.

Made maxprocs have a hard limit of 100; making maxprocs have a value of 400 results in MaraDNS hanging on Linux systems.

(2002.02.25)

maradns-0.9.12:

Cleanups performed so that all files to be audited to be compiled with -Wall enabled without generating any warnings.

Fixed ej2txt so that it no longer generates utf-8 quites.

(2002.02.19)

maradns-0.9.11:

Fixed bug where CNAME records obtained from the cache would not work with stub resolvers, since the code changed the question in the question section of the reply.

'make debug' now works again.

(2002.02.11)

maradns-0.9.10:

Fixed bug of case where there is a CNAME record, and something happened when trying to get an A record for the CNAME record. Previously, MaraDNS would think the CNAME record had no A record until the CNAME record was purged from the cache. Now, MaraDNS is smart enough to store CNAME records with an A record of "a 'no such host' reply was found when we looked for an A record"; and CNAME records without any corresponding A record only stay in the cache for 30 seconds.

If data is already in the cache for a given record, and the data has not expired, then there is no need to spawn a thread to process the record; now MaraDNS no longer does this. This should result in greater stability and less memory usage, since many operating systems do threads poorly.

askmara now can have a user-defined timeout

compile flags changed from -g to -O2

(2002.02.11)

maradns-0.9.09:

Added data_structures.ej document, which describes the internal data structures that MaraDNS uses.

Updated the mararc man page to describe the new debug_msg_level variable

Added files needed to make MaraDNS RPM files in the build/ directory.

(2002.01.27)

maradns-0.9.08:

Fixed another bug in the ej2man script; it now correctly zaps blockquotes inside ul.../ul lists.

Made changelog an ej-compatible document; this allows the changelog to be an ASCII text file instead of an HTML file which a lot of UNIX-heads will prefer.

Verified that MaraDNS 0.9.07 compiles on Darwin (a.k.a. Mac OS X) "out of the box"; this means that MaraDNS now compiles "out of the box" on Solaris; Linux; and Darwin. It also should compile on Cygwin; alas I do not have a working cygwin setup to verify this on. Between these four OSes, we cover all of the major flavors of UNIX: Linux is a little of everything; Solaris is a "System V" UNIX; Darwin is a BSD UNIX clone; and Cygwin is a pure POSIX implementation.

(2002.01.25)

maradns-0.9.07:

Added new runtime parameter which can be seen when debug messages are enabled: The number of elements in the DNS cache.

Added Makefile template which is a generate Makefile for systems which do not have flock() support; make this Makefile the default Makefile (instead of the Linux Makefile).

(2002.01.24)

maradns-0.9.06:

Fixed bug in maradns startup script where the script would not correctly restart the MaraDNS processes.

New mararc parameter added: debug_msg_level; this sets the level of information we can get about a running MaraDNS process by sending special DNS queries to MaraDNS.

(2002.01.23)

maradns-0.9.05:

Revamping of the build process; placing most build-related files in a directory named "build"; MaraDNS now compiles and installs cleanly on Solaris; MaraDNS now has a system startup script which MaraDNS invokes at system startup time.

(2002.01.21)

maradns-0.9.04:

Another documentation fix. Added new EJ tag: DTWIDTH

This version now compiles on Solaris; and should compile on Darwin.

(2002.01.18)

maradns-0.9.03:

Integrated Christian's spelling corrections and German translations in to the MaraDNS documentation.

Minor bugfixes with the ej2man script.

(2002.01.17)

maradns-0.9.02:

Document reorganization: MaraDNS now uses a new document format, EJ (which I created myself for MaraDNS documentation usage), which can be converted in to HTML documents, text documents, or in to man page sources. By having a stramlined documentation format, MaraDNS' documentation will be easier to manage, and easier to translate.

Since the ej format allows other files to be embedded in documents, this eliminates having to revise multiple versions of the same document

(2002.01.16)

maradns-0.5.31:

Backporting of compression security patch to the MaraDNS 0.5.xx branch.

(2002.01.10)

maradns-0.9.01:

Fixed security problem with the compression code which I found when performing an audit on the code. Other cleanup of the compression code.

Updated the French documentation.

Added some more information to the MaraDNS tutorial.

Added (currently untested) Darwin (a.k.a. MacOS X) support.

(2002.01.10)

maradns-0.9.00:

Plugged some memory leaks in the recursive code.

Added Thomas Seyrat's French translation of the documentation

Completed the tutorial

Fixed bug where the zoneserver needed the mararc file specified to start.

Updated documentation

(2002.01.06)

maradns-0.8.99a:

OK, so I was wrong about the first post-0.8.99 release being MaraDNS 0.9.00.

This is simply MaraDNS 0.8.99 with a 2-line patch which fixes a problem where MaraDNS 0.8.99 would crash.

(2001.12.17)

maradns-0.8.99:

Since I found a some security problems when working on the MaraDNS-0.9.00 release, I am making this release available which appears to addresses the security problems.

Changes since 0.8.35:

• Jaakko's patch, in a modified form, has been applied.
• Documentation touchups.
• Askmara timeout increased.
• Solaris recursive support dropped until I can get my hands on my Solaris CDs (and a PC to install Solaris on) in January (Solaris still has bugs which do not exist in Linux).
• Updated test bed to handle NS referrals which point nowhere
• Found and fixed a bug where MaraDNS would not close UDP connections when sendto returned an error
• Fixed a problem that mhash_put_data had, where the DNS cache could become inconsistant in certain circumstances.
• Fixed two other spots in recursive.c (in two of the add_closer routines) which could have potentially caused inconsistant data in the cache.
• Got remove.rng to work again.

I have changed the version number to maradns-0.8.99 to reflect the fact that the next release will almost certaintly be MaraDNS 0.9.00.

(2001.12.08)

maradns-0.8.35:

Made the stress tests in sqa/testbed more extensive; they now crash recursive MaraDNS versions up to and including 0.8.33.

Found and plugged some memory leaks that MaraDNS had.

Verified that MaraDNS can handle the stress tests--MaraDNS was able to handle 80.000 queries without crashing, and without growing after 10.000 or so queries were processed.

(2001.11.17)

maradns-0.8.34:

Found and removed another crash-inducing bug.

Modified askmara so that it generates somewhat csv1-compatible output. Also modified the debug.hostname tool so that it can handle the new askmara output.

(2001.11.16)

maradns-0.8.33:

Yipee! No, I'm not talking about the fact that the evil Taliban are no longer in control of Kabul. I am talking about the fact that I found and removed another crasher bug in MaraDNS.

I hope that this is the last crasher bug. Time to cross my fingers.

(2001.11.13)

maradns-0.8.32:

This is the third beta test candidate for the recursive MaraDNS, since people are reporting serious stability problems with MaraDNS 0.8.30 and MaraDNS 0.8.31. While I am unable to reporduce the problems offline, I was able to reproduce the problem online (but only intermittently), and found some iffy-looking code which may be the root of the problem.

This program passes all offline stress tests.

Also added an entry to the FAQ which answers an unrelated question posted to the mailing list, and added the changelog to the list of files placed in the MaraDNS doc directory when a 'make install' is performed.

(2001.11.13)

maradns-0.8.31:

This is the second beta test candidate for the recursive MaraDNS, since I found some bugs after releasing MaraDNS 0.8.30. See the release notes for MaraDNS 0.8.30 for more on the beta starus of MaraDNS.

Looking through the source code of the revamped hash structure, I found a routine which was not revamped. This would cause a bug in the case of having two or more zone files which happen to hash to the same value--only one of the zone files would load. Fixed. I also deleted some routines which were based on the old hash structure.

I have modified MaraDNS so the csv1 hash no longer needs to be initialized, since the csv1 hash does nothing but waste memory in recursive-only MaraDNS configurations.

I have added another parameter: timeout_seconds, which is how long to wait for a remote DNS server to reply. This is mainly useful for slow networks which need more than two seconds to get a reply from a DNS server. Note that the larger this is, the slower MaraDNS answers queries when a DNS server doesn't respond to DNS requests.

In addition, I have begun work on the tutorial, which currently describes how to use MaraDNS in recursive mode, and gives an overview of DNS.

(2001.11.12)

maradns-0.8.30:

This is a beta test candidate for the recursive version of MaraDNS. Which means that the only changes I will make between now and the first beta release are essential bug fixes (e.g. bugs not mentioned in the man page), and a basic DNS tutorial, since I have received two emails of the form "I don't know how to do this DNS stuff, and could use some help".

The bad news is that, because of the excess of greedy lawyers in the US, I have added the legal disclaimer to all of the man pages for MaraDNS, and, in addition, the legal disclaimer appears when MaraDNS is started.

The good news is that it is possible to have MaraDNS not show the legal disclaimer when opening up; MaraDNS tells you how to do this when showing the disclaimer.

The better news is that I have done a major revamping of the MaraHash structure. This structure is a structure that can both handle records being added, and being removed from the hash. MaraDNS, as far as I can tell from my offline tests, is now a great deal more stable as a result.

In addition, I found another memory leak in the recursive code, which I have plugged.

I have also performed some more documentation touch-ups.

(2001.11.10)

maradns-0.8.29:

OK, this is a "band-aid" release of MaraDNS. As I was debugging the problem with MaraDNS crashing with the new custodian, I discovered that the hash code is fundamentally broken. Hence, I need to a major revamp to the hash code. In short, the hash needs to have each hash spot point to a linked list of elements.

In the meantime, I performed a band-aid fix to the hash that, while not fixing the problem, makes the problem slightly less bothersome. This is an interim release until I can really fix the problem this weekend.

Updated the FAQ to reflect the slightly changed procedure for joinging the MaraDNS mailing list ("subscribe" now has to be in the subject line when one wants to join the list).

(2001.11.08)

maradns-0.8.28:

I fixed a bug in the fila-handling code where chains of records were not being correctly put at the top of the list.

I am still receiving reports that MaraDNS freezes up after running for a while. I am unable to reproduce this problem. I have carefully checked the recursive code for potential deadlocks, finding none.

I suspect that there is a certain query which causes thie problem. Theirfore, I have added the ability for MaraDNS to log all queries she receives in human-readable format if verbose_level is three or higher.

While this results in some really huge logs, this will hopefully allow me to pin down exactly which query causes MaraDNS to lock up, allowing me to see where MaraDNS locks up, allowing me to resolve the issue.

(2001.10.31)

maradns-0.8.27:

I have added a lot of code which creates a circular linked list. This circular linked list is used by the custodian to erase elements from the cache which have not been recently accessed.

The psudo-random number generator has been renamed to 'rng', and modified to be a hash-only primitive. MaraDNS no longer has any code which can be directly used for cryptographic purposes. Of course, the compression function of the hash/prng is invertable, and can be used as a stream cipher, but such is the case for all secure hash functions and secure PRNGs.

Added a list of features I will not add to the 1.x release of MaraDNS to the MaraDNS man page.

The default max_glueless_level is now 10, because some real-world hosts need a max_glueless_level this high.

(2001.10.31)

maradns-0.8.26:

I have updated the 0QuickStart file to be current with the present state of MaraDNS.

The Linux makefile now supports "make debug", useful for making a build with verbose debugging output.

Now that I have some decent *roff documentation, I have done some improvments to the formatting of the man pages. Not only do the man pages look a little more attractive on the tty terminal, the man pages also look good when made postscript man pages (troff -man -Tps foo.1 > foo.ps).

In addition, since the -man macros are not documented anywhere on the internet, I have somewhat deciphered the tmac.an macro set, and written up some documentation describing all of the -man macros. (2001.10.15)

maradns-0.8.25:

I have done an audit and an overhaul of how MaraDNS calls locks in the recursive code. Hopefully, this will resolve the issues with MaraDNS freezing after running for a few days.

In addition, the recursive resolver now is better able to handle instances where a NS record points to a list of IPs.

More documentation updates. The man page for maradns now has a guide on how to set up a firewall to allow maradns packets through, and a list of known issues where MaraDNS breaks the DNS spec.

The crypto-emasculated version of MaraDNS no longer binds the source port of outgoing UDP queries. This is because the underlying OS may generate secure source port numbers when the source port is not specified in the application.

(2001.10.12)

maradns-0.8.24:

I have created a tool, called debug.hostname in the tools directory, which gives a very verbose trace trying to look up a given hostname. This will hopefully help me to debug and fix problematical hostnames.

I have also created a tool, called faq2man which converts the HTML faq in to a format suitable for embedding in to a man page. This makes the FAQ section of the MaraDNS man page more attractive

I have made the maximum glueless level user-configurable, since it looks like some hosts do not resolve with the old hard-wired default of 4. I have also made the maximum number of queries performed total in a recursive lookup user-configurable

I have added more helpful error messages which tell the user what to fix in their mararc file if MaraDNS can not initialize the DNS cache or the random number seed. The init_cache() and init_crypto() failed error messages should not be visible any more.

Documentation update: There is now a man page description of the mararc file. The CREDITS and FAQ files have been updated, in addition to almost all man pages. For example, I have gotten rid of the two or three pages of ugly troff syntax that Perl's pod2man program generates in the Man pages which had this.

make run without ./configure now works again.

Since MaraDNS used to act in a different manner than Python 1.5.2 with respect to multiple declations of the same index of the same dictionary variable, I have changed MaraDNS so that she exits with a fatal error should this occur, showing the user the line with the problem.

Made the error message which pops up when a csv1 zone file pointer is incorrectly formatted more helpful.

There was a minor security weakness with the PRNG which would pop up if the seed was a fixed file, two copies of MaraDNS used the same seed file, and the two files were started at the same time. This has been fixed. The seed is now exclusive-ored with the process ID before generating numbers.

More trimming of unused routines in the AES code. The AES code now only supports encryption with a 128-bit key and block size in ECB mode--the only way we use AES in MaraDNS.

For people who can not legally have any kind of cryptography in their code (French citizens, etc.), there is now a script in the tools directory, remove.aes which removes all crypto code. Note that, while the main MaraDNS suite will still compile after running this, some programs in the tools/misc, test and sqa directories will no longer compile. make still works, of course. Note that removing this code does make MaraDNS more suspectable to a spoofing attack.

(2001.10.08)

maradns-0.8.23:

Star records which point to CNAMEs are now completely supported.

Christophe Colle pointed out that the reason MaraDNS was leaking memory when making threads on Solaris was because MaraDNS was not using pthread_attr_destroy. Hopefully, adding this will make MaraDNS not leak on Solaris.

Improvment to the "make install" process: The default configuration looks for local man pages in /usr/local/share/man if /usr/local/man doesn't exist. This is to get around some Linux distributions which don't have /usr/local/man

Minor security tweak to the routine that generates the 16-bit secure psudo-random number.

The AES hasher now correctly generates a 128-version of the hash specified in Bram Cohen's proposed AES hash standard. Thanks to Bram for providing test vectors for the 256-version of the hash.

maradns --version now also includes the build system and date

(2001.09.27)

maradns-0.5.30:

Two bugs have been fixed: A bug where a UDP error message normally did not have the correct query ID, and a bug where, in certain cases, MaraDNS would return a UDP error instead of a SOA "not there" reply.

Also, the documentation has been updated. (2001.09.25)

maradns-0.8.22:

Document reorganization: I am starting to move the formats of the data files to separate man pages. This will make each man page smaller and more convenient to use.

Improved CNAME support: MaraDNS now has partial support for star records that point to a CNAME.

Less code in the aes directory: I now have a program which generates the AES tables during the build process, since the code to generate those tables is a good deal smaller than the tables themselves. There is no slowdown, since it is a one-time calculation done during the build process.

maradns --version (and zoneserver --version) now do the right thing: Print out the version number and exit

The installer now removes the zoneserver and the maradns server before installing the new ones to get around the "text file busy" problem.

There was a subtle bug with returning "not there" SOA replies and case insensitivity. This bug has now been fixed. This bugfix also needs to be folded back in to the 0.5.xx branch.

It is now possible to change the class of the query with the getzone client if possible. Next: Document this new feature. (2001.09.24)

maradns-0.8.21:

First, the bad news.

There is a known issue with MaraDNS having memory leaks when used as a recursive nameserver on the Solaris operating system. This problem does not exist in Linux. Since I do not have ready access to a Solaris box to develop on, I can not resolve this issue. Until a Solaris developer steps up to bat and fixes this for me, I am forced to disable recursive DNS serving under Solaris.

I should have ready access to a Solaris again in December, when I return to the United States. I have CDs of Solaris eight up there, in addition to friends with Solaris boxes.

Now, the good news.

I have updated the example mararc files to be consistant with the documentation. In particular, I now have two "out of the box" working mararc files. One for authoritative name serving, and another for recursive nameserving.

I have also updated the installer script to return an error if the directories to put the MaraDNS files in do not exist. In addition, MaraDNS will install all of the MaraDNS documentation in the directory specified by the variable DOCS in install.locations.

Finally, I have updated the FAQ, the man pages, the mararc.format documentation, and am working on making separate man pages which describe csv1 zone files and the mararc file. (2001.09.20)

maradns-0.8.20:

When doing some tests with the AES engine in MaraDNS, I found that I inadvertently created a minor security problem w.r.t. ASCII nulls in the AES key. Basically, an "out of the box" MaraDNS configuration had a 1 in 16 chance of the aes key not having a full 128 bits of entropy.

I also corrected a minor fault in the aes128 hasher (it did not previously fully follow the spec, since it counted bytes, not bits), a minor fault with the top-level Makefile (which did not clean up tools/misc with a make clean), and did some minor manpage clean-up. (2001.09.18)

maradns-0.8.19:

Updated the CREDITS file. If you have contributed to MaraDNS in any way, no matter how small, and are not in this file, please let me know so I can credit you.

Removed references to routines in the aes/ directory which MaraDNS and aes128 do not use. The aes code is now encrypt-only.

Added a test, based on Brian Gladman's AES reference code, which verified that the AES routines are working correctly.

Some cleanup, corrections, and revisions of the man pages. I figured out how to turn off hyphenation and justifaction for man pages, and have hence disabled these in all of the MaraDNS man pages.

Streamlining of the build process: ./configure; make; make install now does "the right thing". In addition, make uninstall also automagically does the right thing.

Important: make install now, by default, installs files in /usr/local/sbin, /usr/local/bin, and man pages in /usr/local/man. If one has previous installs of MaraDNS in other locations, please change the install.sh script to the desired location of the MaraDNS files. (2001.09.17)

maradns-0.8.18:

Added code which keeps track of allocated memory, allowing me to hunt down and eliminate memory leaks. Found four memory leaks in the recursive code:

• in_bailiwick did not properly destroy the tempory string "get"
• When a negative answer was given, query_nameserver did not correctly deallocate some temporary strings
• recurse_call did not correctly deallocate the temporary string used for glueless queries
• The code that set up the root nameservers in the cache had two strings which were used to help set up the root nameservers. This strings were not deallocated after being used. This was a one-time, and not continuous, leak.

(2001.09.15)

maradns-0.8.17:

Incorperated a modified form of Franky's patch which adds the max_tcp_procs kvar to the program. Added some non-DNS releated tools to the "tools" directory. Clean up of the documentation. (2001.08.28)

maradns-0.8.16:

More regression testing: Added test where it sends an answer to a server. If the server replies, this is considered an error condition. Cleaned up the recursive code (got rid of some XXX to dos): Mainly, MaraDNS sends an error if she can not spawn a thread. Documentation reorganized. (2001.08.16)

maradns-0.8.15:

Made an 'asktest' program which will be used for regression testing. (2001.08.15)

maradns-0.8.14:

Added support for a counter that counts the children in the Zone server. (2001.08.13)

maradns-0.8.13:

Askmara doesn't display debug messages which can mess up terminals to the end user any more.

When an element in the cache is overwritten, the new data is now added to the cache.

New feature: MaraDNS can now blacklist spammer-friendly DNS servers.

(2001.08.12)

maradns-0.8.12:

Fixed bug in udperror which caused it to spit back the wrong query ID.

Added code to use a counter to count the number of threads. If we have more than maxprocs threads going on at the same time, we refuse to launch a thread.

Cached data now will go through round-robin rotates.

MaraDNS now compiles again when the locale is set to Spanish (though I still need more Spanish translations. Maybe when I am in México, I can get help down there) (2001.08.11)

maradns-0.5.29:

Backported some bug fixes with zone file handling back to the "stable" authoritative-only branch of MaraDNS. (2001.08.10)

maradns-0.8.11:

Improved handling of CNAME records in the cache. BSD-dependent routines (which are currently unused in MaraDNS) are not compiled if we are compiling on a Solaris box. (2001.08.08)

maradns-0.8.10:

I have redone the makefile in the rijndael directory, some some makes (notably, the one NetBSD has) did not like the original Makefile. Marked some unreproducable bugs as unreproducable. (2001.08.07)

maradns-0.8.09:

After much work (handling lame delegations better and fixing a bug in substring_issame_case), I have managed to get the host name linuxemu.retrofaction.com to resolve.

Completely unreleated to MaraDNS, I have added a SirCam filter to the tools directory. (2001.08.03)

maradns-0.8.08:

More bug swatting:

• The problem that was causing www.fairytale-abuse.com to not resolve is fixed. (Better lame delegation handling)
• The problem that was causing www.cs.cmu.edu and www.roaringpenguin.com to not resolve is fixed (Better case sensitivity handling)

(2001.07.28)

maradns-0.8.07:

Fixed the zoneserver so it too only answers questions. Fixed two bugs in the getzone client: One where it would handle MX records incorrectly, another where it would hand the root zone incorrectly (this bug was actually in the Queries.c file). (2001.07.27)

maradns-0.8.06:

We now check to make sure we only answer questions. (2001.07.18)

maradns-0.8.05:

Added support for multiple root name servers. Also changed the example mararc file to have the root servers for eight different top level domain registries listed. (2001.07.16)

maradns-0.5.27:

Back porting bug fixes to the authoritative-only branch of MaraDNS. (2001.07.15)

maradns-0.8.04:

MaraDNS now sucessfully compiles on Solaris. Thanks to Franky Van Liedekerke for providing the pointers on how to do this, and to Danny for access to a Solaris machine to compile MaraDNS on. (2001.07.14)

maradns-0.8.03:

Solaris support added, but does not fully work, added disclaimer, improved code which drops group privledges. (2001.07.13)

maradns-0.8.02:

Another bug fix: If a zone did not have a record of a given type at the "top" of the zone, MaraDNS would attempt to perform recursion instead of returning a SOA record in the authority section. Fixed. Also needs to be fixed in the 0.5.xx branch. Thanks to D Richard Felker III for finding the bug. (2001.07.10)

maradns-0.8.01:

Touch up bug fix: MaraDNS failed to close open file descripters when reading zone files. Fixed. Also needs to be fixed in the 0.5.xx series. Thanks to Boris Manojlovic for finding the bug. (2001.07.09)

maradns-0.5.26:

Fixed a couple of long-standing bugs found while debugging the recursive version of MaraDNS:

• Fixed a subtle bug in the DNS compression code that would only show up in certain rare circumstances.
• Fixed a bug in the handling of ANY DNS queries.

(2001.07.08)

maradns-0.8.00:

This is the first alpha release of the recursive nameserver. I fixed a bug in the compression code, and fixed another bug which was causing problems with glueless name server entries. (2001.07.08)

maradns-0.7.22:

www.monty.de now successfully resolves; fixed bug where the custodian could potentially erase the root name server entry, making MaraDNS non-functional as a root nameserver until restarted. (2001.07.07)

maradns-0.7.21:

Type ANY queries now work for recursive queries. Finally. (2001.07.06)

maradns-0.7.20:

Another late night double feature MaraDNS show. There was a really nasty bug which Jaakko pointed out to me. I found the culprit, and fixed the bug. (2001.07.04)

maradns-0.7.19:

Begun work on some of the infastructure changes needed to make MaraDNS sucessfully resolve recursive ANY queries. Added maradns_gid support. Other pieces of code cleanup, primarily better handling of RR_ANY when acting as an authoritative nameserver (should I fold these changes in to a 0.5.26 release eventually?). (2001.07.04)

maradns-0.7.18:

Re-arranging of the engine that returns an answer from the cache. We check the cache expire of a "host not here" reply. Updated the documentation so that it is the 0.5.25 documentation with the recursive stuff added as needed. (2001.07.01)

maradns-0.7.17:

We now choose a random DNS server to query when we are looking for an answer. (2001.07.01)

maradns-0.7.16:

Updated documentation to include information on how to set up a recursive nameserver. Fixed bug where multiple levels of CNAME indirection were not being properly followed. It is now possible to go to www.imdb.com or groups.yahoo.com (both cases of multiple levels of CNAME indirection). (2001.06.30)

maradns-0.7.15:

I have added support for negative caching: If a given host name does not exist, the program sends a "not here" to the stub resolver. I also fixed a bug which was causing out-of-bailiwock queries to not work. (Having to do with the case-sensitivity issue). Next: Getting www.monty.de to work, caching ANY replies. (2001.06.28)

maradns-0.7.14:

MaraDNS now works as a recursive nameserver again. The root nameserver is now user-configurable. CNAME returns queries in a form that a stub resolver can now understand. (2001.06.25)

maradns-0.7.13:

After much tinkering with the code, I have managed to make it so that a CNAME record in the cache returns the corresponding A record (note: only one A record!) along with the CNAME record. This should allow hosts like www.yahoo.com to work when this is used as a stub resolver. (2001.06.24)

maradns-0.7.12:

More work done on plugging memory leaks. Working on code that will determine the ip for a given CNAME record, since stub resolvers are not smart enough to do a second A query themselves when they see a CNAME record. Also some minor cleanups that Franky Van Liedekerke suggested. (2001.06.22)

maradns-0.7.11:

Finished work on the custodian. Now, I need to make sure the custodian works. Also fixed CNAME support so it now works, plugged a couple more memory leaks, and revised the offline testbed to have a CNAME record. (2001.06.21)

maradns-0.7.10:

Bigfixes: I have plugged some memory leaks, and added code which will (hopefully) allow recursive queries to cname records to work. I have also done some more work on the "custodian" code. (2001.06.21)

maradns-0.7.09:

Bugfix release: MaraDNS now closes the sockets that she opens when performing recursive queries. This stops the open sockets from piling up. Also, I have begun work on the "custodian" code: Code the reduces the number of elements in the cache when the user-defined cache runs low on space. (2001.06.20)

maradns-0.7.08:

I have made the RNG truly random, and I have added code to the resolution algorithm which allows it to perform recursive queries when the only authoritative records are NS delegation records. Also, updates to the todo list. Changed cc to gcc in all the makefiles to make MaraDNS more Solaris-friendly. (2001.06.20)

maradns-0.7.07:

I have added ACLs which limit who is allowed to make recursive queries. I have also begun work on making the random number seed truly random. (2001.06.19)

maradns-0.7.06:

I have updated the non-recursive code to use code from MaraDNS 0.5.25, which adds a number of features from there (round robin rotation, etc.) I have alos made a list of things which need to be done before I can make this a beta candidate for a 1.0 release. In addition, the code now makes sure that the query ID we receive is the same one we sent out. I have also started work on a CREDITS file, updated the FAQ, and added a couple of interesting (if not MaraDNS-specific) Perl scripts to the archive. (2001.06.17)

maradns-0.7.05:

The DNS server now has a psudo-random number generator which uses the Rijndael algorithm. This PRNG randomizes both the query ID and (I believe) the source port of any and all DNS queries. This PNRG now needs to become secure (by setting up either a random or a user-defined Rijndael key) (2001.06.16)

maradns-0.7.04:

There were some bugs in the RR expire code. I have found those bugs, fixed them, and now cache expirery should work. (2001.06.12)

maradns-0.7.03:

This release has implemented the ability to expire records from the cache. All Name server records have a fixed expire of 1 day (this can be changed by changing one #define in recursive.c), but all other records have an expire time based on the TTL of the record. I have not yet tested DNS RR expire. (2001.06.11)

maradns-0.7.02:

Milestone: This is the first release of MaraDNS that works as a recursive nameserver with the real root nameservers. Fix: Changing only the case of the first nameserver, add negative caching, then start adding security (good RNG for the query ID and source port, recursive ACL), then start making the root servers customizable (including being able to have different TLDs have different root servers). (2001.06.11)

maradns-0.7.01:

Beginning work on making MaraDNS both case-insensitive and able to preserve case. (2001.06.06)

maradns-0.7.00:

Albert Prats kindly provided Spanish translations for various text files. To get MaraDNS to compile in Spanish instead of English, type in ./locale.es before compiling MaraDNS.

MaraDNS now can handle gluelessness. I am bumping up the minor version number to reflect that MaraDNS now has recursive nameserving capabilities, albeit without some security features. Next: Work on cache flushing and security. (2001.06.03)

maradns-0.6.21:

Now, if one of the IP nameservers is bad, we will try the next nameserver in the chain. Next: Add the code to handle out-of-bailiwick nameservers (2001.06.01)

maradns-0.6.20:

Two big improvments: 1) The recursive resolver can now handle multiple A records (MaraDNS deliberately ignores NS and AR records. Note that it is a good idea to give out the corresponding A record for a CNAME record [To do]) 2) There is now code which makes a local copy of the chain of NS records in an authoritative-only section, which will allow me to make thread-safe code which will query other nameservers, should a given nameserver not function (e.g. Someone changed a computer's IP. In the three weeks it can take Network Solutions to update the records on the root nameservers, we still want to be able to reach the domain in question by using the other listed nameserver for the domain)

maradns-0.6.19:

Not only did I get to spend some time with my family this memorial day weekend, I also was able to get Linux up and going on my new laptop. Took two installs, but everything except SSL in Konqueror now works. I also, now that the new laptop is (mostly) up and going, have gotten a chance to work on MaraDNS. This new laptop, since it has a working battery, should speed up MaraDNS development--I can now work on MaraDNS on the train. The latest version is able to go to a remote server and give us an incomplete answer (only one RR) based on what the remote server tells us. (2001.05.29)

maradns-0.6.18:

Some minor bugfixes and tweaks: The nameserver will now query name servers until it is able to find an answer, then it will go in a loop. (2001.05.24)

maradns-0.6.17:

A fairly significant milestone: This version of MaraDNS is able to read data from an authoritative nameserver, and, based on that data, determine the IP of a nameserver closer to the answer we are looking for. (2001.05.21)

maradns-0.5.24:

Two minor bug fixes: The erre-con-erre-cigarro.maradns.org query will work, even if authoritative nameservers for the root are set up; MaraDNS now will run on systems which do not support the setrlimit system call, such as the GNU Hurd. (2001.05.21)

maradns-0.5.23:

Three bug fixes: MaraDNS now works with RRs for the root namserver (MaraDNS, in fact, can now be a nameserver for the root), the askmara tool now has a timeout (and can ask questions about the root nameserver), and the output that MaraDNS generates is unbuffered. (2001.05.19)

maradns-0.6.16:

I have added a lot more debugging stuff as I hunt down why it is RRs are not being added to the dns RR cache. I think I am pretty close to pinning it down, and hope tomorrow's release can add RRs to the big cache. (2001.05.18)

maradns-0.6.15:

I added a simple interactive debugger which lets me see the state of the DNS cache hash table. Looks like the data from the server is not being added to the cache. Next: FInd out why not. (2001.05.17)

maradns-0.6.14:

An unexpected event forcing me to go home late yesterday caused there not to be a release of MaraDNS yesterday.

Fixed bug where it was not correctly appending the class to the server that it was querying. Temporarily disabled the actual threading while development work on the recurseor continues. Next: Make sure that the cache is properly seeded from data from authoritative nameservers. (2001.05.17)

maradns-0.6.13:

Fixed bug where it was choosing the wrong IP to query. Automated the process of setting up a testbed (which is completely self-contained), so I can debug this on a variety of machines. Next: Fix the timeout bug. (2001.05.15)

maradns-0.6.12:

MaraDNS compiles again. Now, I need to go through all the code and iron out all of the bugs. Testbed of MaraDNS configuration files added. (2001.05.14)

maradns-0.6.11:

More work on the recursive stuff done. (2001.05.13)

maradns-0.6.10:

More work on the recursive stuff done. (2001.05.12)

maradns-0.5.22:

Bugfix release: non-0 opcodes now correctly return a "NOT IMPLEMENTED" error message. Also, some minor cleanup in the documentation: star records (*.example.com, etc.) are now documented. (2001.05.10)

maradns-0.6.09:

add_closer_jsddip, add_closer_js, and add_closer_jsip now have a third argument: Whether to overwrite or append to already existing data in the cache. Since the autoconf stuff doesn't work with the development branch, I got rid of it for now. Once this code gets stable, one of the Debian packagers can feel free to add the autoconf stuff again. (2001.05.10)

maradns-0.6.08:

Added in_bailiwick and cmp_dnames functions to recursive.c (2001.05.09)

maradns-0.5.21:

Feature enhancment: Added round-robin rotation of records and limits to the number of records that can be displayed for a given answer to MaraDNS. This will be the last feature enhancment for the 0.5.xx tree. All changes in the 0.5.xx tree will now be bug fixes. Now, back to work on the 0.6.xx series, starting off with integrating the 0.5.xx changes. (2001.05.07)

maradns-0.5.20:

Feature enhancment: We now make sure that the same AR record does not show up twice in the AR section. Thanks to Phil Homewood for pointing out this problem. (2001.05.06)

maradns-0.5.19:

Bugfix release: We now follow chains of records in the AR section. The authoritative bit for an "RR_ALL" request is now determined by the authoritative bit in the first RR found. Thanks to Phil Homewood for finding these bugs. (2001.05.06)

maradns-0.6.07:

The askmara tool now uses select() to time out after three seconds. Added a lot of code to the recursive lookup. I now send a query to the remote server, and receive the reponse. Next: Code to process the response and add the data to the local cache. (2001.05.06)

maradns-0.6.06:

The recursive code now sucessfully seeds a root nameserver in to the cache. Next: Code to query and get the response form that nameserver. (2001.05.05)

maradns-0.6.05:

Heavy debugging of the recursive stuff going on. It is not fixed, but I wanted to post something, however miniscule, before going to bed. (2001.05.04)

maradns-0.5.18:

Addded new feature: default_rrany_set, which is used to change the RRs returned when a RR_ANY query is sent to the MaraDNS server. Thanks to Phil Homewood who pointed out that this is sometimes needed. (2001.05.03)

maradns-0.6.04:

recursive text documented updated to reflect changes I made on the train. Some other cleanup. (2001.05.02)

maradns-0.6.03:

Wrote up document detailing the recursive algorithm that MaraDNS' recursive resolver will use. Integrated the 0.5.17 bugfixes in to the development tree. (2001.05.01)

maradns-0.5.17:

Fixed bug in MaraDNS' handling of zone transfers where the response is a single big RR instead of multiple small RRs. Some other small bugfixes. (2001.04.30)

maradns-0.6.02:

I have the general structure of how I want to do the recursive name serving in place. The devil, however, is in the details. (2001.04.28)

maradns-0.6.01:

Fixes in MaraDNS-0.5.16 incorporated in to development branch. Slowly making progress on the recursive code. (2001.04.26)

maradns-0.5.16:

Fixed bug in the zoneserver's handling of replies longer than 255 octets in length. Fixed problem in manpage and updated man page. Special thanks to Phil Homewood for finding problems the zone server was having. (2001.04.26)

maradns-0.6.00:

Work on making MaraDNS recursive begins. (2001.04.26)

maradns-0.5.15:

Fatal error messages caused by failed system calls now show the user the error message that the system gave, in addition to MaraDNS' error message. (2001.04.26)

maradns-0.5.14:

Added "no_fingerprint" feature which minimizes the MaraDNS-specific features, making it more difficult to determine which DNS server one is running. (2001.04.23)

maradns-0.5.13:

Manpage for maradns added. (2001.04.22)

maradns-0.5.12:

Added better support for CNAME records: If the CNAME record points to an A record, and we have the A record "on file", MaraDNS will add the CNAME record to the ar section of the reply. Also added support for getting the version number for maradns via a 'erre-con-erre-cigarro.maradns.org.' TXT query. Set things up so we can both a autoconf-based and a non-autoconf-based build process, and we can switch between the two. Next: Branch off to development again, because I need to get the zone server multithreaded. (2001.04.22)

maradns-0.5.11:

Tollef Fog Heen generously ran autoconf for MaraDNS. The build process now consists of './configure;make'". (2001.04.21)

maradns-0.5.10:

Code cleanup: I added -Wall as an option in the libs, dns, and server directories. Cleanup of all the warnings that -Wall generated. Added /etc/mararc and /var/maradns/db.example.com to RPM file. (2001.04.20)

maradns-0.5.09:

The server crashes were causes by pointers that were not correctly initialized to zero. The pointers causing the crash have been initialized, and hopefully this one will be crashproof. Next: Look for other incorrectly initialized variables. (2001.04.20)

maradns-0.5.08:

Begin a "stable" brach for the only-authoritative non-threaded nameserver. Changed compiler option from -g to -O2. Made RPM of MaraDNS-0.5.08. (2001.04.19)

maradns-0.5.07:

Plugged some memory leaks in the zoneserver which, while not currently a problem, could have been a problem if I had started coding threads before plugging the memory leaks. Some of the leaks were is the js_string library, so that code base is a lot cleaner now. Made the functions in ParseCsv1.c thread-safe. My friend Fatma generously supplied a German translation of the error strings in MaraDNS_en.h--we now have a MaraDNS_de.h which, while not perfect, will be appreciated by the Germans. (2001.04.18)

maradns-0.5.06:

The zone server for MaraDNS can now be run from inetd. Due to the security implications of this (MaraDNS' IP-based ACLs stop working when run from inetd), this will be an undocumented feature. (2001.04.18)

maradns-0.5.05:

Phil Homewood generously supplied a patch that makes this compile on FreeBSD. In addition, he fixed a bug in the Makefile in dns/Makefile which made it so bobbit.c compiles instead of using the Linux-specific object file (Which I didn't catch, since make clean didn't remove it and make didn't recreate it). I also fixed a bug in getzone.c which was introduced when I put the string literals in a language-specific file. (2001.04.17)

maradns-0.5.04:

Added more support for dotted decimal IPs in NS, CNAME, and MX records. Added handles for code which will warn the user of the presence of these dotted-decimal IP records. Fixed bug where js_copy was not returning an appropriate value on success (2001.04.17)

maradns-0.5.03:

If a "give me all records for a given hostname" query appears, MaraDNS will now look for a CNAME with the same hostname, returning only that if found (and she will only look for a CNAME if an A and MX were not found), and if A, MX, and CNAME records are not found, MaraDNS will see if the person entered a dotted decimal ip and respond appropriately. (2001.04.16)

maradns-0.5.02:

Most of the text messages that MaraDNS' various utilities generate have been moved to separate files, which will make localization easier. (2001.04.16)

See previous change log entries