Re: Speaking of DNS server software...

[Ryan Kozak via NANOG <nanog () lists nanog org>]

This is not necessarily true anymore. As of Python 3.13 the GIL is now optional, though it defaults to enabled. They 
are slowly working towards flipping that. 

https://peps.python.org/pep-0703/

Regards,
Ryan


-------- Original Message --------
On 2025-08-10 10:40, Michael Crute via NANOG <nanog () lists nanog org> wrote:

>  On Aug 10, 2025, at 07:43, Chris Woodfield via NANOG <nanog () lists nanog org> 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.
>  
>  The CPython interpreter does still have a global interpreter lock as well which causes thread synchronization on 
> data access. You can mitigate this somewhat by running multiple instances of a server or asynchronous programming 
> techniques but it still has a pretty substantial performance impact on highly concurrent systems. This is why most 
> people scaling Python do so horizontally. I'd personally avoid something like Python for DNS or at least load test it 
> very carefully before using it in production.
>  
>  ~mike
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