Problem enabling PowerDNS

Submitted by impire on Tue, 04/26/2011 - 12:14

Hello,

I've tried to enable PowerDNS but received the error message:

"Failed to save enabled features : The plugin PowerDNS Domain cannot be used : An error occurred connecting to the MySQL database : unknown error"

I clicked on the "configure" and see the database name is powerdns. I then went to MySQL and don't see a database with that name exist. I manually created it to match "powerdns".

I tried to save it again, got the same message.

I also clicked on the "open" option, but see the below message:

"An error occurred connecting to the MySQL database : unknown error. Check the module configuration to ensure that all settings are correct."

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you in advance.

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Comments

Submitted by impire on Tue, 04/26/2011 - 12:15

Also, how can I disable BIND and have virtualmin work directly with PowerDNS when creating new virtual servers?

Submitted by JamieCameron on Tue, 04/26/2011 - 16:00

Do you already have PowerDNS up and running on your system? That plugin assumes that it is already working, and that you can just configure the plugin to connect to the appropriate MySQL database that stores PowerDNS records..

Submitted by impire on Tue, 04/26/2011 - 16:24

Hi,

I thought Virtualmin Pro install PowerDNS by default, no? I searched for a standard method to install powerdns on debian, but found 2-3 different ways to do it.

Is there a standard method to install it using webmin or virtualmin? I really think since Virtualmin Pro supports powerdns, it should also be installed.

Could you please also let me know that once powerdns is installed, will I have to remove bind? Are there more documentation on this topic?

Thanks very much.

Joe's picture
Submitted by Joe on Tue, 04/26/2011 - 16:56 Pro Licensee

Virtualmin Professional installs BIND by default, and if you don't have technical staff in-house that knows something about PowerDNS we would recommend you stick with the default DNS server. We have a lot more experience supporting BIND than PowerDNS. The PowerDNS module is an optional Open Source module, provided for the convenience of those folks who need it...it is not a promise to support PowerDNS (just like the Oracle module is not a promise to support Oracle).

There is no standard method of installing PowerDNS in Webmin or Virtualmin, though I'd recommend you use your OS-provided packages, if available (and you could probably use the Webmin Software Packages module to do that, but you'd still need to configure it and make it work). We do not provide PowerDNS packages for any platform, and currently have no plans to do so.

In short: We recommend you use BIND, unless you have a really good reason to use PowerDNS and the technical know-how to make it work in your environment.

Submitted by impire on Tue, 04/26/2011 - 19:42

Hi Jamie,

Thanks very much for your reply.

I do want BIND, but circumstances has forced me to seek out alternative. You wanted one good reason, here's one. BIND would not started after I added about 7,000 domains. It just won't start period. I've tried clean install and tried both the Pro and the GPL version of virtualmin. I also tried added in using the bulk DNS Add (third party module) and the bulk server add. Nothing work.

Did you ever encountered this situation before? I am pretty sure we are not the only one. I've seen posts on the net about this problem but no resolution in sight. As you can see, it's not that I want to use PowerDNS. I simply don't have a choice. Virtualmin is built to natively support BIND. But how do you resolve this problem?

I also discover Apache also have a problem starting at this volume. I am also thinking about trying out alternative web servers.

Thank you in advance for your time and effort.

Submitted by JamieCameron on Tue, 04/26/2011 - 22:50

BIND, Apache and Virtualmin probably aren't suitable for hosting that many domains unfortunately. Certainly Virtualmin was designed for more heavy-weight websites with individual applications, content and databases - BIND may theoretically be able to support thousands of domains, but I've never seen it done.

Instead you should probably look into a solution that is optimized more for this kind of hosting..

Submitted by impire on Tue, 04/26/2011 - 23:28

Thank you Jamie. I really appreciate you pointing that out. cPanel support said they can have it done up to 100,000 domains and beyond. I wonder if that's just marketing talk.

Anyway, since Virtualmin is focus on heavy-weight websites with individual applications, any idea when Virtualmin will support Nginx? That is a much better web server than Apache in term of performance. I know there's quite a few requests in the forum. Thanks.

Joe's picture
Submitted by Joe on Wed, 04/27/2011 - 01:19 Pro Licensee

I'm kinda surprised you ran into problems with BIND with only 7000 domains. BIND runs the worlds largest name servers (including most of the root name servers). Seems like there must be something pathological going on in your deployment.

That's not to say that Virtualmin is the right tool for managing 7000 domains (it probably isn't, as Jamie mentioned), but I'm sure BIND is not the reason.

Submitted by impire on Wed, 04/27/2011 - 07:25

Hi Joe,

Thanks for your message. This is not a new issue. This is a known issue. I brought this issue to Jamie a few years back. Fast forward to 2011, I am hoping this would get resolved. Unfortunately, I am tackling the same thing again. Just google this issue and you will see that I am not the only one facing the BIND issue.

I pretty much gave up on this endeavor for now. Since cPanel claim they could have tested it up to 1,000,000 zones before BIND start to crash and burn, I am going to give their software a run for their money. The problem is, I am in love with Virtualmin. It is by far the best control panel, hands down. You and Jamie have thought of every possible tools that an admin need. I am grateful for that.

I know it's a BIND issue. This has nothing to do with Virtualmin and Webmin. I could actually prove it at 65,000 zones. I installed on clean server. BIND could not start. NSD took less than 2 minutes to boot and hum along like a tank for years. NSD doesn't have any integration with Virtualmin. For this reason, I am hoping PowerDNS would be a contender. But I can't even test it with Webmin/Virtualmin. Hence the reason for the initiation of this ticket. Webmin/Virtualmin provide a PowerDNS module, but doesn't support it. I am not sure what it's doing there as a plugin to begin with. I don't mean any disrespect by that. But Webmin is a solid management tool. I would thought for a solid software like PowerDNS to make it in as a plugin, it has to be at least pass the initial test.

Thanks again for all of your help. I sincerely appreciate it.

Submitted by JamieCameron on Wed, 04/27/2011 - 11:55

We do support the use of PowerDNS .. however, Virtualmin's plugin can only manage an existing PowerDNS install, it won't automatically install it for you.

I think there are pdns-* packages available on Debian Squeeze that you can install. You would also need to remove the bind or named package to get rid of BIND 9. Once PowerDNS is running, we can help with configuring Virtualmin to integrate with it.

Submitted by JamieCameron on Wed, 04/27/2011 - 11:56

We do support the use of PowerDNS .. however, Virtualmin's plugin can only manage an existing PowerDNS install, it won't automatically install it for you.

I think there are pdns-* packages available on Debian Squeeze that you can install. You would also need to remove the bind or named package to get rid of BIND 9. Once PowerDNS is running, we can help with configuring Virtualmin to integrate with it.

Submitted by impire on Wed, 04/27/2011 - 16:37

Thank you Jamie! I will do another clean install and go from there. Take care.