Due to popular demand a new meeting format begins this October, as we will be holding special technical discussions on alternate meeting dates to the usual general meetings. The aim is to allow members the opportunity to discuss in depth a specific technology deployed across the network and ways they may be improved.
It is expected that members attending will research the topic chosen and participate in how these systems might be improved and also learn more about some of the successes and challenges we have had during the deployment of current systems and why they have been used.
Where : Parkside Primary School .
When : 25/10/2006, 7:30PM
Who : Anyone with interest can attend.
This Meetings Subject : DNS
The Domain Name System (or Service) is a system that stores information about hostnames and domain names in a kind of distributed database on our network. Most importantly, it provides a physical location (IP address) for each hostname see: wikipedia DNS
- Currently we use BIND but what are the problems and benefits? wikipedia BIND
- What other systems are there to use? eg: tinyDNS/djbdns tinydns.org
- Are there better ways manage or automate Domain Names?
- Redundancy management what is used and what should be used?
- What type of naming conventions are used currently and what should we be using?
Additional bullet suggestion
How to handle expansion or the joining of air-stream to other similar networks around australia.
Roaming clients
Won't be able to make the meeting, but something else to consider is the case of roaming clients.
Dependent on how the captive portal system works, but we will generally have two types of client on an access point:
- Fixed clients (eg Galaxy dish on your roof pointing to the AP)
- Roaming clients (eg members connecting to an AP nearby with a laptop)
The first case is currently handled by DNS.
The second will probably be best handled by some integration with the authentication for roaming clients. Ie I log on with the username sk2 and my pasword, and the captive portal allows me access via that ap. It also will tie the username sk2.roaming.air-stream.wan or something to my current IP for the duration of my session.
If we are looking to run DNS across the network this will need to be taken into account.