Temporary files: RAM or disk?

Very true, there have been caching DNS servers that malloc everything and let the VM handle the disk. BIND gained a reputation for absolutely shredding swap space, especially if you were running more than one instance on a box. Now that BIND has its sharable databse plus hooks to use mysql/postgres/ldap/etc, I don't think it works like that anymore...? (I haven't used BIND in quite a while, hallelujah).

Lots of other DNS servers use their own databases and handle caching themselves (tinydns, powerdns, djb). maradns is the one exception I know of, but I don't think it has seen much adoption...?

You make an excellent point, this is a great example of swap usage ont he server. Nevertheless, I'm still under the impression that my "most servers don't want swap" statement still holds.