The Sysadmin’s Daily Grind: Dnsgraph

GRAPH MASTER

Article from Issue 69/2006
Author(s):

A partly overloaded DNS server can slow down all the workstations on the network. Dnsgraph is an early warning system that gives administrators a graph of critical values. Your Dnsgraph charts will help you keep your systems serving names.

Just recently I heard about a memory genius who could remember the value of pi to several thousand decimal figures; at the same time, this person couldn’t explain the practical value of this exercise. People like that don’t need a DNS server; instead they could just memorize a few thousand IP addresses. But normal folks prefer DNS. And if you run a name resolution service yourself, I’m sure you will appreciate Dnsgraph [1]. The project name indicates a similarity with projects such as Mailgraph and Queuegraph, and Dnsgraph is actually based on Mailgraph. The tool parses a file for the status information generated by my Bind 9 DNS server [2], and converts the figures into a graph.

Buy this article as PDF

Express-Checkout as PDF
Price $2.95
(incl. VAT)

Buy Linux Magazine

SINGLE ISSUES
Print Issues
Digital Issues
 
SUBSCRIPTIONS
Print Subs
Digisubs
 
TABLET & SMARTPHONE APPS
Get it on Google Play

US / Canada

Get it on Google Play

UK / Australia

Related content

  • Charly's Column

    Worms, mail bombs, and users who send multiple megabyte Powerpoint files across the wire give Postfix administrators plenty of reasons to view their charges with a critical eye from time to time.

    more »
  • Charly's Column

    Ornithologists already know that magpies don’t really deserve their reputation. The true kleptomaniac in the world of birds is the raven. And it’s worthwhile for data dealers to make the acquaintance of Munin, a monitoring tool named after one fabled raven.

    more »
  • Charly's Column

    Network monitors are a dime a dozen, but Nload, which separates incoming and outgoing traffic and draws graphs on the console without X, is unique.

    more »
  • Charly's Column – SparkFun

    Is your neighbor burning the wrong kind of wood or did a couple of VWs just pass by your house? Charly finds out with a sensor. For an attractive approach to visualizing boring measurement figures, you can either use your own web server or rely on a specialized service like SparkFun.

    more »
  • Charly's Column

    Zsync handles a special case: large volume download files that change frequently but not drastically. Charly shows how this handy file fetcher can save you time and bandwidth.

    more »
comments powered by Disqus

Visit Our Shop

Trial Subscription

Digital Subscription

Subscribe

Direct Download

Read full article as PDF:

Charly_Column.pdf (91.30 kB)

News

Tag Cloud

Administration Community Desktop Events Hardware Linux Linux Pro Magazine Mobile Programming Software Ubuntu Web Development Windows free software open source