While I can't tell you much about Tucows's api in this regard (I dont' think
anything exists on their end for DNS hosting), I can offer a suggestion or two:

1) use the latest version of Bind 9 (9.2.3 I think, but check at http://isc.org/)
2) If all domains will be pointing at the same ip, with the same mail exchanger,
etc... (I mean EVERYTHING will be setup identical) you may be able write a
simple zone that looks something like this (not with these hostnames of course ;-):

$TTL            900
@       IN      SOA             ns1.national-net.com. ns2.national-net.com. (
2003032801      ; serial #
4H              ; refresh
1H              ; retry
1D              ; expire
3H )            ; minimum
;
@                NS      ns1.national-net.com.
@                NS      ns2.national-net.com.
@                MX      10      mx-rr.mail.national-net.com.
@                IN      A       66.115.128.1
*                IN      CNAME   @

3) Point every - EVERY domain in your named.conf (or an include file) to the
same physical text file on your hard drive. Doing this will allow you to reload
DNS quite often with almost no noticeable delay.  I used to have problems with
130k+ domains in Bind all sharing one IP, but this solved the problem.

4) Make sure you have adequate memory for the number of zones (I'm no ISC
expert, but here's a suggestion...)  256MB of ram for up to about 1,000 domains,
512MB for up to about 5,000, and 1GIG for up to about 15,000. (Your mileage may
vary especially if you follow the step in #3 - you may not need as much).  In
general, make sure Bind never uses more than half your system memory if you have
other services running, and that 'top' reports buffers in excess of 10-100mb
after the server has been up for a few hours/days. If not, consider adding more ram.

This has kept our DNS running smoothly (even though we don't have the 130k+
domains now) on a UltraSparc 120mhz machine.

Let me know if you'd like any clarification.


-Roger Ward
National Net Postmaster/Programmer
Natnames.com programmer


Quoting Mark <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:

> Hi,
> I need to provide nameserving for my customers. It's very simple 
> since all my customers will have the same IP. Is there a service like 
> tucows that people use that does nameserving through an api? 
> Otherwise I guess I will have to set up bind on my machine, is there 
> anything I need to know?
> 
> thanks,
> - Mark
> 
> 

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