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by QuicksilverJohn 2473 days ago
Basically, only the root record parsing is done in JS and then passed to unbound for resolution. Though it is possible to run a pure JS resolver, it's not really recommended.

There's also a more portable authoritative & recursive [resolver in C](https://github.com/handshake-org/hnsd).

Plus, the whole protocol for node communication and name resolution & proofs is so simple, that it's pretty easy to reimplement in any language.
1 comments
w8rbt 2473 days ago
Right, thanks. And I hope my question does not sound too critical. I was just genuinely curious why JS was used.

I think JS is fine for small to mid-sized tasks, prototyping and testing ideas. However, for real DNS servers, used by a lot of clients, I believe C, C++, Go or Rust would be an absolute requirement.

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tynes 2473 days ago
The JS implemention is a fork of bcoin, the JS Bitcoin full node and production backend.

It binds to libunbound but you are right that you would want a lower level language for it to be more scalable. There is a rust implemention work in progress here: https://github.com/UrkelLabs/rsd

There is also a C light client here: https://github.com/handshake-org/hnsd

For the consensus, there are C bindings for the cryptography and a workerpool that really speeds things up.

It could also be possible to dump the Handshake zone into a zone file and serve from behind unbound.

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troquerre 2473 days ago
This is separate from the DNS resolver being written in JS, but the team behind Handshake also created bcoin, which is the only javascript fullnode (and non-core fullnode IIRC) that has mined a Bitcoin block.

https://github.com/bcoin-org/bcoin

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