Re: Speaking of DNS server software...

[Etienne-Victor Depasquale via NANOG <nanog () lists nanog org>]

> 1. Performance delta, but that’s likely anywhere near the issue with
> python than it is with earlier scripting runtimes. While it’s been a while
> since I’ve done a side-by-side comparison, I’d argue that once code is
> compiled, cpython runtime performance is far more akin to Java than perl or
> JS. Still not as performant as C or Go runtimes, though; bytecode is still
> bytecode.

Interesting, from a research perspective.

I didn't realize that the data rates required by DNS resolution at some
scale level would be higher than what interpreted Python code could achieve.

On Sun, Aug 10, 2025 at 4:42 PM Chris Woodfield <chris () semihuman com> wrote:

> > On Aug 10, 2025, at 03:40, Etienne-Victor Depasquale via NANOG <
> nanog () lists nanog org> wrote:
> > > Python is, well, Python. It makes as much sense to me to write a DNS
> > > server in Perl or Javascript, which is to say: not much.
> >
> > I don't follow. What's the objection?
>
> I’d consider two off the top of my head -
>
> 1. Performance delta, but that’s likely anywhere near the issue with
> python than it is with earlier scripting runtimes. While it’s been a while
> since I’ve done a side-by-side comparison, I’d argue that once code is
> compiled, cpython runtime performance is far more akin to Java than perl or
> JS. Still not as performant as C or Go runtimes, though; bytecode is still
> bytecode.
>
> 2. Python-based DNS servers aren’t nearly as ubiquitous as others, and as
> such lack the kind of battle testing that, say, BIND, PowerDNS, or
> commercial servers have been through. This makes sense from a security
> perspective, but the solution is to make bugs shallower, not to avoid
> entirely. Understandably, no one wants to go first.
>
> -Chris



-- 
Etienne-Victor Depasquale
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