The point of DNS Enabler is to put a user-friendlier face on BIND, the UNIX DNS-serving utility. This is not an easy task, and DNS Enabler does an adequate job. If you study the documentation, which is reasonably good, and pay close attention to all the examples, AND your needs don't vary too far from those examples, then you can set BIND up without too many headaches.

It is still possible (even easy) to produce a configuration that BIND finds unacceptable, and refuses to run. DNS Enabler offers no help at all in this situation.

Now to the business practices of Cutedge Systems. I paid for and ran DNS Enabler on Tiger for about two years, and was reasonably happy with it. It was quirky, but manageable. Then I upgraded my server (1.25-GHz G4 Mini, nice little box) to Leopard.

No DNS; my whole LAN was suffering. I tried to launch DNS Enabler, and was told it would not function under 10.5, that I needed to upgrade. I downloaded the latest version, 3.0.3, but it would not accept my serial number. It insisted I buy a new one, for another $15. [There isn't much in the way of improved functionality; it just works with the new OS.] I grumbled but paid.

However, version 3.0.3 doesn't read the configuration files of the previous version. 2.1.1 can export those files to a format that 3.0.3 CAN import, but 2.1.1 won't run anymore, so that's out.

I spent many hours recreating my DNS configuration, and wrestling with the lack of help offered by DNS Enabler. Not happy.

The upshot is that I have removed DNS Enabler from my server. It won't be coming back. Webmin (http://www.webmin.com/) works fine, for free. It requires a little more knowledge about DNS and BIND, but then when it came down to it, so does DNS Enabler, with many more headaches.