The NLnet Labs Name Server Daemon (NSD) is an authoritative DNS nameserver. It has been developed for operations in environments where speed,reliability, stability and security are of high importance.

NSD has a pure design philosophy that prioritises raw performance. This meansthat if you serve hundreds of thousands or even millions of queries persecond, NSD is one of the leading implementations in the world. Thenameserver also featuressimdzone, ahigh-performance DNS presentation format parser that utilises instructionsavailable in modern processors to substantially enhance the throughput ofoperations such as zone loading.

These features make NSD ideally suited for Top Level Domain implementations,DNS Root servers and anyone in need of a fast and optimised authoritativename server. Currently, three DNS root servers and many top-level domainregistries use NSD as part of their server implementation. NSD has notimplemented recursive caching by design. If you need a validating, recursive,caching resolver then NLnet Labs hasUnboundavailable.

NSD is distributed free of charge in open source form under the BSD license.For most platforms,packages are available. Thesoftware is covered by asecurity patch policy. If you run NSD in a mission criticalenvironment and you would like support backed by a Service Level Agreementdirectly from the developers at NLnet Labs, please visit ourSupportContracts page for more information.