NameBench

namebench requires Python 2.4 - 2.6. On Mac OS X or Linux, Python is typically built-in. Otherwise, install it from python.org.

To run a standard benchmark with the default settings, execute the script without arguments:

./namebench.py

namebench provides both a graphical user interface (GUI) and a command-line interface (CLI).

• Default behavior: On Mac OS X and Windows, the GUI is used by default.
• Force CLI: To disable the GUI and force the command-line interface, use the -x or --no_gui flag.

./namebench.py -x

dnspython is a DNS toolkit for Python that supports almost all record types. It provides two levels of access:

1. High-level access: Classes that perform queries for data of a given name, type, and class, returning an answer set.
2. Low-level access: Classes that allow direct manipulation of DNS zones, messages, names, and records.

It supports queries, zone transfers, dynamic updates, TSIG authenticated messages, and EDNS0.

Httplib2 is a comprehensive HTTP client library with the following capabilities:

• HTTP/HTTPS Support: HTTPS is available if the Python socket module was compiled with SSL support.
• Keep-Alive: Supports HTTP 1.1 Keep-Alive to reuse connections for multiple requests.
• Authentication: Supports Digest, Basic, and WSSE authentication over HTTP and HTTPS.
• Caching: Supports a private cache using Cache-Control headers, ETag, and Last-Modified validators.
• Methods: Handles all HTTP request methods (not just GET and POST).
• Redirects: Automatically follows 3XX redirects on GET requests.
• Compression: Automatically handles deflate and gzip compression.
• Lost Update Support: Automatically adds ETags back into PUT requests for previously cached resources.

In recent versions, Answer objects support the Python sequence protocol, allowing you to iterate over or slice the underlying rrset directly.

# The following are equivalent:
for a in answer
for a in answer.rrset

answer[i] == answer.rrset[i]
answer[i:j] == answer.rrset[i:j]

To create a basic line chart using the Google Chart API backend, import google_chart_api from graphy.backends. You can pass your data directly to the LineChart constructor and then configure chart elements like chart.bottom.labels to add context. Use chart.display.Url(width, height) to generate a URL for displaying the chart.

from graphy.backends import google_chart_api
monthly_rainfall = [3.2, 3.2, 2.7, 0.9, 0.4, 0.1, 0.0, 0.0, 0.2, 0.9, 1.8, 2.3]
months = 'Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec'.split()
chart = google_chart_api.LineChart(monthly_rainfall)
chart.bottom.labels = months
print chart.display.Url(400, 100)

The namebench CLI tool is used to compare DNS server performance. To run a benchmark, you must specify which DNS servers to test using the -s flag or by providing IP addresses as positional arguments.

Common usage patterns include:

• Testing all available DNS servers: namebench.py -s all
• Testing specific groups: namebench.py -s preferred,isp or namebench.py -s system
• Testing a specific global server plus others: namebench.py -s global 8.8.8.8
• Testing only specific IP addresses: namebench.py 8.8.8.8 10.0.0.1

For a full list of options, use namebench.py -h.

# Test best available DNS servers
namebench.py -s all

# Only test current system DNS servers
namebench.py -s system

# Benchmark just these two servers
namebench.py 8.8.8.8 10.0.0.1

To build and install dnspython, use the standard Python setup script.

python setup.py install

The httplib2 module is distributed as a distutils package. To install it, unpack the distribution archive and run the setup script using Python.

$ python setup.py install

thread.error: can't start new thread

This occurs when you are using too many threads. Reduce the thread count using the -j flag. Example fix:

./namebench.py -j8

unhealthy: TestWwwGoogleComResponse <class 'dns.exception.Timeout'>

This indicates the specified nameserver was too slow to answer. If all nameservers are timing out, increase the general timeout using the -Y flag. Example fix:

./namebench.py -Y 4

You can test specific IP addresses instead of the default set by either adding the IPs directly to the command line or by editing the namebench.cfg file.

To test specific IPs via the CLI:

./namebench.py 10.0.0.1 192.168.0.1