9.2. Query Cache

Besides entire packets, PDNS can also cache individual backend queries. Each DNS query leads to a number of backend queries, the most obvious additional backend query is the check for a possible CNAME. So, when a query comes in for the 'A' record for 'www.powerdns.com', PDNS must first check for a CNAME for 'www.powerdns.com'.

The Query Cache caches these backend queries, many of which are quite repetitive. PDNS only caches queries with no answer, or with exactly one. In the future this may be expanded but this lightweight solution is very simple and therefore fast.

Most gain is made from caching negative entries, ie, queries that have no answer. As these take little memory to store and are typically not a real problem in terms of speed-of-propagation, the default TTL for negative queries is a rather high 60 seconds.

This only is a problem when first doing a query for a record, adding it, and immediately doing a query for that record again. It may then take up to 60 seconds to appear. Changes to existing records however do not fall under the negative query ttl ( negquery-cache-ttl), but under the generic query-ttl which defaults to 20 seconds.

The default values should work fine for many sites. When tuning, keep in mind that the Query Cache mostly saves database access but that the Packet Cache also saves a lot of CPU because 0 internal processing is done when answering a question from the Packet Cache.