Net::DNS - Perl DNS Resolver Module =================================== TABLE OF CONTENTS ----------------- 1. Description 2. Availability 3. Prerequisites 4. Installation 5. Running Tests 6. Demonstration Scripts 7. Dynamic Updates 8. Signed Queries & Updates 9. DNSSEC 10. Bugs 11. Copyright 12. Author Information 13. Staying Tuned 14. Acknowledgments 1. DESCRIPTION -------------- Net::DNS is a DNS resolver implemented in Perl. It allows the programmer to perform nearly any type of DNS query from a Perl script. For details and examples, please read the Net::DNS manual page. To read about the latest features, see the Changes file. To find out about known bugs and to see what's planned for future versions, see the TODO file. Net::DNS does not depend on any C libraries. However, if possible Net::DNS tries to link against a C-library that is supplied with the code. This provides a notable speed increase. The author invites feedback on Net::DNS. If there's something you'd like to have added, please let me know. If you find a bug, please send me the information described in the BUGS section below. See http://www.net-dns.org/blog/ for announcments about Net::DNS 2. AVAILABILITY --------------- You can get the latest version of Net::DNS from the Comprehensive Perl Archive Network (CPAN) or from the module's homepage: http://search.cpan.org/dist/Net-DNS/ or through http://www.net-dns.org/ The following link will always be the current released version: http://www.net-dns.org/download/Net-DNS-release.tar.gz Additionally a subversion repository is made available through http://www.net-dns.org/svn/net-dns/ The version on the "trunk" (http://www.net-dns.org/svn/net-dns/trunk) is the version that is targeted for next release. Please note that the SVN version at any given moment may be broken. 3. PREREQUISITES ---------------- The availability of prerequisites for Net::DNS is tested at installation time. These are the core packages that need to be available. Test::More IO::Socket MIME::Base64 Digest::MD5 Digest::HMAC_MD5 Net::IP For IPv6 support you will need Socket6 and IO::Socket::INET6. The availability of these is tested at runtime. You can obtain the latest version of Perl from: http://www.cpan.org/src/ Some of the demonstration and contributed scripts may require additional modules -- see demo/README and contrib/README for details. Note that the Test::More module is actually part of the Test-Simple distribution. See the FAQ (lib/Net/DNS/FAQ.pod) for more information. Net::DNS is mostly developed on MacOS X. I have access to Linux, FreeBSD and if need be to cygwin. 4. INSTALLATION --------------- Please install any modules mentioned in the PREREQUISITES section above. If you don't, Net::DNS won't work. When you run "perl Makefile.PL", Perl should complain if any of the required modules are missing. To build this module, run the following commands: perl Makefile.PL make make test make install Net::DNS can optionally link to the libresolv library. This speeds up parts of the packet parsing process. The Makefile.PL script will attempt to determine if the library can be used. To override Makefile.PL's guess, use the '--xs' option to force linking the library: perl Makefile.PL --xs Use the '--noxs' option to use the pure perl version: perl Makefile.PL --noxs If you wish to not run the online tests, the '--no-online-tests' option can be used. Similarly, '--online-tests' will enable the online tests. 5. RUNNING TESTS ---------------- If any of the tests fail, please contact the author with the output from the following command: make test TEST_VERBOSE=1 6. DEMONSTRATION SCRIPTS ------------------------ There are a few demonstration scripts in the demo/ directory -- see demo/README for more information. Contributed scripts are in the contrib/ directory -- see contrib/README. The author would be happy to include any contributed scripts in future versions of this module. All I ask is that they be documented (preferably using POD) and that the contributor's name and contact information be mentioned somewhere. 7. DYNAMIC UPDATES ------------------ Net::DNS supports DNS dynamic updates as documented in RFC 2136; for more information and examples, please see the Net::DNS::Update manual page. Please note that there are some bugs in the BIND 8.1-REL nameserver that can cause it to dump core when receiving certain dynamic updates, so if you have problems using Net::DNS that might be the cause. If you're running BIND 9, you should be using the latest version available from the Internet Software Consortium (ISC, www.isc.org) or from your OS vendor. As of this writing, the latest production version of BIND 9 available from the ISC is 9.3.1. (with 9.3.2 at the horizon) Here's a summary of the update semantics for those interested (see RFC 2136 for details): PREREQUISITE SECTION # RRs NAME TTL CLASS TYPE RDLENGTH RDATA ----- ---- --- ----- ---- -------- ----- yxrrset 1 name 0 ANY type 0 empty yxrrset 1+ name 0 class type rdlength rdata nxrrset 1 name 0 NONE type 0 empty yxdomain 1 name 0 ANY ANY 0 empty nxdomain 1 name 0 NONE ANY 0 empty UPDATE SECTION # RRs NAME TTL CLASS TYPE RDLENGTH RDATA ----- ---- --- ----- ---- -------- ----- add RRs 1+ name ttl class type rdlength rdata del RRset 1 name 0 ANY type 0 empty del all RRsets 1 name 0 ANY ANY 0 empty del RRs 1+ name 0 NONE type rdlength rdata 8. SIGNED QUERIES & UPDATES --------------------------- As of version 0.15, Net::DNS supports the TSIG resource record to perform signed queries and updates (see RFC 2845). See the Net::DNS::Packet and Net::DNS::Update manual pages for examples. If you're using the BIND nameserver, the BIND FAQ shows how to generate keys and configure the nameserver to use them: http://www.nominum.com/resources/faqs/bind-faq.html TSIG support is new and isn't yet complete. Please use with caution on production systems. Feedback on TSIG functionality would be most welcome. 9. DNSSEC --------- The extensions to make Net::DNS DNSSEC aware are distributed seperatly as Net::DNS::SEC. The package is available from CPAN. Because of its dependency on Crypt::OpenSSL and other not so standard libraries, it is distributed as a seperate package. 10. BUGS -------- Net::DNS, while over four years old, is still under development and is sure to contain a few bugs. Please see the TODO and Changes files for more information. I recommend that you exercise caution when using Net::DNS to maintain a production nameserver via dynamic updates. Always test your code *thoroughly*. The Net::DNS author accepts no blame if you corrupt your zone. That warning in place, I am aware of at least one large company that has used Net::DNS to make thousands of dynamic updates per day for nearly three years without any problems. Please use the following form to submit bug reports: https://rt.cpan.org/NoAuth/ReportBug.html?Queue=Net-DNS If you find a bug, please report it in "rt.cpan.org" along with the following information: * version of Perl (output of 'perl -V' is best) * version of Net::DNS * operating system type and version * version of nameserver (if known) * exact text of error message or description of problem * the shortest possible program that exhibits the problem * the specific queries you're making, if the data is available to Internet nameservers If I don't have access to a system similar to yours, I may ask you to insert some debugging lines and report back on the results. The more help and information you can provide, the better. 11. COPYRIGHT ------------- Copyright (c) 1997-2002 Michael Fuhr. Portions Copyright (c) 2002-2004 Chris Reinhardt. Portions Copyright (c) 2005 Olaf Kolkman (RIPE NCC) Portions Copyright (c) 2005 Olaf Kolkman (NLnet Labs) All rights reserved. This program is free software; you may redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself. 12. AUTHOR INFORMATION ---------------------- Net::DNS is currently maintained at NLnet Labs (www.nlnetlabs.nl) by: Olaf Kolkman and his team. olaf at net-dns.org Between 2002 and 2004 Net::DNS was maintained by: Chris Reinhardt Net::DNS was created by: Michael Fuhr mike at fuhr.org 13. STAYING TUNED -------------------- http://www.net-dns.org is a web site dedicated to the development of Net::DNS. Announcements about Net::DNS and Net::DNS::SEC will be done through the Net::DNS weblog at http://www.net-dns.org/blog/. An RSS feed for the weblog is available. If you want to have access to the latest and greatest code a subversion repository is made available through http://www.net-dns.org/svn/net-dns/ The version on the "trunk" (http://www.net-dns.org/svn/net-dns/trunk) is the version that is targeted for next release. Please note that code from the SVN repositories trunk and development branches may be broken at any time. 13. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ------------------- Thanks to Mike for letting me take care of his baby. Thanks to Chris for maintaing Net::DNS for a couple of years. Thanks to Rob Brown for all his patches and input. Thanks to all who have used Net::DNS and reported bugs, made suggestions, contributed code, and encouraged me to add certain features. Many of these people are mentioned by name in the Changes and TODO files; lack of mention should be considered an oversight and not a conscious act of omission. Thanks to Larry Wall and all who have made Perl possible. Thanks to Paul Albitz and Cricket Liu for allowing me [OK: that's Mike] to write the Net::DNS section in the programming chapter of _DNS and BIND_, 3rd Edition. This chapter in earlier editions was very helpful while I was developing Net::DNS, and I was proud to contribute to it. Thanks to Paul Vixie and all who have worked on the BIND nameserver, which I've used exclusively while developing Net::DNS. Thanks to Andreas Gustafsson for DNAME support, and for all the work he has done on BIND 9. Olaf acknowledges the RIPE NCC for allowing Net::DNS maintenance to take place as part of 'the job'. Thanks to the team that maintains ethereal, without its marvelous interface debuging of bugs in wireformat would be so much more difficult. Thanks to the thousands who participate in the open-source community. I've always developed Net::DNS using open-source systems and I'm proud to make Net::DNS freely available to the world ---- $Id: README 519 2005-12-07 12:30:16Z olaf $