MaraDNS 1.3.07.02 release

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Since I am about to go on a road trip, I have released MaraDNS 1.3.07.02 today. This is a bugfix-only release. Testing earlier this week found two significant bugs in the code. This release fixes both bugs. This release is suitable for testers of MaraDNS, and for distributions where it is clear that the distribution includes cutting-edge releases of software that have not been fully tested. I had one person ask for a Debian package of MaraDNS 1.3 this spring (I guess some people don't know how to type in tar xvjf maradns-1.3.07.02.tar.bz2 followed by cd maradns-1.3.07.02; ./configure; make; su followed by make install). I am not familiar with what does or does not belong in Debian-unstable or Debian-testing, but it may be time to move up the "bleeding edge" release of Debian up to 1.3.

The 1.3.07 branch will become the next stable branch of MaraDNS. The only changes to this branch that I will make before I christen it stable are adding additional SQA test, documentation changes, and, of course, bug fixes.

In the meantime, 1.2.12.06 is the current stable release of MaraDNS. This release is, barring a critical security hole, updated once every three months. The last update was May 18; the next update to the 1.2 branch should be in mid-August.

MaraDNS 1.3.07.02 is available on the MaraDNS download page.

MaraDNS snapshot released

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I have released a new snapshot of the betatest branch of MaraDNS today. In this snapshot, I fixed the bug that was causing MaraDNS to generate invalid DNS packets. Basically, the csv2 parsing code was sometimes allowing TXT chunks to be over 255 bytes in length, which does bad and unexpected things, but is not a security problem.

I fixed the bug in both the 1.2 and 1.3 branches of MaraDNS (the patches are different in this case). The 1.2 patch will eventually become part of MaraDNS when MaraDNS 1.2.12.07 is released mid-August. I will probably make another 1.3 release of MaraDNS, so people have something to work with while I go on my road trip next week.

The 1.2 patch is here, and the 1.3 snapshot is here.

- Sam

MaraDNS snapshot uploaded

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I have uploaded a new snapshot of the beta-test beanch of MaraDNS today. I have changed the test regression that makes sure the bug I fixed earlier this week in askmara stays fixed. I have changed the test to use a mini-UDP server to generate the packet that puts older versions of askmara in an infinite loop. This way, when I fix the bug in the server that generates the bad packet, I can still make sure askmara can handle these kinds of malformed packets gracefully.

It is here.

As an aside, I will be on vacation the first week of July, and will be unable to answer email or update MaraDNS during that week.

- Sam

Puppy Linux: DO NOT USE

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DistroWatch has an article about Puppy Linux. Executive summary: Do not use this distro. Do not touch this distro. Do not go anywhere near th is distro. You have been warned.

- Sam

MaraDNS snapshot updates

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I have released two updated snapshots of MaraDNS today. One snapshot is the stable snap; this incorporates changes that will make it in to the 1.2.12.07 release of MaraDNS that will happen (barring a critical security hole) in mid-August. The changes in this branch are:

• Back port of memleak fix when bind_star_handling has a value of 2 plugged (2-line fix)
• Backport of changes that make it so bind_star_handling with a value of 2 does the right thing
• Bug in askmara that would cause askmara to be in an infinite loop when receiving certain kinds of invalid packets fixed (1-line fix).

I am also making a snapshot for the beta test branch available today. The changes for this snapshot are:

• askmara bug fixed
• SQA regressions added: Askmara bug regression; DNS truncation regressions

The MaraDNS stable snapshot and MaraDNS betatest snapshot are available on the MaraDNS webpage (click on the links in this sentence).

Some samples of my bitmap font

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Here are some samples of my bitmap font, Sandals:











As you can see, the font is quite pleasant to read on the screen; I have no problem use this font to read text on a screen for hours at a time. The italic text is not as pretty as the roman and bold faces, but is perfectly readable, and I have better things to do with my time than perfect the font. It's good enough for me. :)

Anyway, Sandals can be downloaded here (Click on the link at the top).

- Sam

MaraDNS 1.3.07.01 released; beta-test cycle begins

I generally release major new versions of MaraDNS on solstices. I released MaraDNS 1.0.00 on June 21, 2002; MaraDNS 1.2.00 on December 21, 2005, and MaraDNS 1.3.01 (Starting with 1.3, there are no longer .00 releases) on December 21, 2006. In keeping with this tradition, I release the first betatest release of the 1.3 branch of MaraDNS today: 1.3.07.01.

This is a betatest release. No, not "beta" the way Google means "beta" ("beta", in Google parlance, seems to mean "we're too lazy to have a real release cycle for our web apps"). This means that no new features will be added to the MaraDNS 1.3 code before it is declared stable. The only changes before I declare 1.3 stable will be more SQA tests added, documentation improvments, and bug fixes.

The two big features added to the 1.3 branch are:

• It is now possible to have djbdns-style delegation of subdomains with the recursive resolver
• BIND zone files are now supported, via a Python script that converts BIND zone files in to MaraDNS-1.3-compatible zone files

In terms of the MaraDNS 1.0 branch, the only changes that will be done with that branch are "typo-bugfixes" and security fixes. When a say a "typo bugfix", I mean a bugfix that requires changing 10 lines or less of code. MaraDNS 1.0 "how do I" questions have not been answered by me for about a year (but you may be able to get support on the mailing list). Typo-bugfixes will only be applied with the MaraDNS 1.0 code for six more months. After that, only security bug fixes will be applied to MaraDNS 1.0. On December 21, 2010, I will stop supplying security fixes to MaraDNS 1.0.

In terms of the MaraDNS 1.2 branch, this is still the stable branch of MaraDNS. Since, however, 1.3 is now frozen, I will start to phase out the kinds of bugs I will fix in 1.2. Security, bugs, of course, will continue to be fixed. As will typo-bugs. However, any other bugs will need a compelling reason for me to fix. For example, I will no longer fix RFC-compliance bugs in 1.2 unless you can show me a serious real-world problem the lack of RFC compliance is causing.

Anyway, MaraDNS 1.3.07.01 is available for download here:

www.maradns.org/download.html

I encourage people to help me beta-test and find bugs in the 1.3 branch.