This article is a quick configuration manual of a Linux DNS server using bind. I believe that bind do not need much introduction, but before
you proceed with the installation and configuration of bind nameserver
make sure that bind DNS server is exactly what you want. Default setup
and execution of bind on Debian or Ubuntu may take around 200MB of RAM
with no zones added to the config file. Unless you reduce the memory
usage of a bind via various bind "options" config settings, be prepared
to have some spare RAM available just for this service. This fact is
even more important if you pay for your own VPS server.
Another DNS nameservers available on a Linux systems are NSD ( Name Server Daemon) or djbdns ( tinydns ). Both are lightweight alternatives to bind9 DNS server and have less RAM requirements. Apparently are even faster.
In this article we will not go into details of what Domain Name Service ( DNS ) is nor how DNS works. Rather we simply concentrate in a simple configuration of a custom zone and config file for a given domain / host supporting www, mail services.
Sample scenario notes to help you ready this DNS bind howto:
Last thing before we go ahead to check a configuration is to add and
IP address af a stable DNS server to a named.conf.options file. This IP
address is used in case that a local DNS server do not know the answer
the a name resolution query. In IP address of a DNS server in many cases
is provided by your Internet provider. Alternatively if you are google
fan use 8.8.8.8 or 8.8.4.4.
Replace a following blog of text withing a named.conf.options file:
To check a DNS zone files we can use named-checkzone command:
dig command can be used from any PC which has a network access the your DNS server but preferably your should start your testing from a localhost. In our this case the IP address of our name server is 192.168.135.130. First we will test host-to-IP resolution:
Another DNS nameservers available on a Linux systems are NSD ( Name Server Daemon) or djbdns ( tinydns ). Both are lightweight alternatives to bind9 DNS server and have less RAM requirements. Apparently are even faster.
In this article we will not go into details of what Domain Name Service ( DNS ) is nor how DNS works. Rather we simply concentrate in a simple configuration of a custom zone and config file for a given domain / host supporting www, mail services.
Sample scenario notes to help you ready this DNS bind howto:
- nameserver IP address 192.168.135.130
- sample domain / host: linuxconfig.org
- authoritative nameservers for a linuxconfig.org zone: ns1.linuxconfig.org ( 192.168.0.10 ) and ns2.linuxconfig.org ( 192.168.0.11 )
- www and mail services for linuxconfig.org will point to: 192.168.0.10
1. bind9 nameserver installation
Unless you prefer to install bind from a source code the installation is rather simple. On a Debian or Ubuntu Linux server you can install a bind nameserver with a following command:apt-get install bind9 dnsutilsCentOS or Fedora alternative:
yum install bind dnsutilsdnsutils is not compulsory package to run bind webserver, but we will use a dig command which is part of this package as a testing tool of your bind configuration.
2. Creating a DNS zone file
At this stage we will need to create a new zone file for a domain linuxconfig.org. Navigate to /etc/bind/ directory execute following sequence of commands to navigate to zones/master/cd /etc/bind mkdir -p zones/master cd zones/master//etc/bind/zones/master directory will contain a zone file for a linuxconfig.org domain. If you prefer to use another directory to hold this file you are free to do so. The following zone file db.linuxconfig.org will hold a DNS record to assist a nameserver resolve a fully qualified domain name to an IP address. Create and save db.linuxconfig.org with a following content:
;
; BIND data file for linuxconfig.org
;
$TTL 3h
@ IN SOA ns1.linuxconfig.org. admin.linuxconfig.org. (
1 ; Serial
3h ; Refresh after 3 hours
1h ; Retry after 1 hour
1w ; Expire after 1 week
1h ) ; Negative caching TTL of 1 day
;
@ IN NS ns1.linuxconfig.org.
@ IN NS ns2.linuxconfig.org.
linuxconfig.org. IN MX 10 mail.linuxconfig.org.
linuxconfig.org. IN A 192.168.0.10
ns1 IN A 192.168.0.10
ns2 IN A 192.168.0.11
www IN CNAME linuxconfig.org.
mail IN A 192.168.0.10
ftp IN CNAME linuxconfig.org.
Here is just a quick review of some lines from the above bind DNS zone file:- SOA Record: nameserver authoritative for a zone linuxconfig.org is ns1.linuxconfig.org and admin.linuxconfig.org is an email address of a person responsible for this DNS zone.
- NS Records: two nameservers for a linuxconfig.org zone are ns[1,2].linuxconfig.org
- MX ( Mail Exchange): linuxconfig.org mail exachange record. Number 10 means a preference for discarting a records A : A simply means address inanother words in linuxconfig.org's zone a ns1 would ahve a A ( address ) 192.168.0.10.
- CNAME Record ( Canonical Name record ): restart the query using the canonical name instead of the original name
3. address-to-name mappings
At this stage the bind DNS server can resolve an IP address mapped
to a linuxconfig.org host. What we should do now is the teach our
nameserver the other way around, which is, to resolve a host from an IP
address. For this we are going to need yet another file and that is db.192.168.0 with a following content:
PTR;
; BIND reverse data file for 0.168.192.in-addr.arpa
;
$TTL 604800
0.168.192.in-addr.arpa. IN SOA ns1.linuxconfig.org. admin.linuxconfig.org. (
1 ; Serial
3h ; Refresh after 3 hours
1h ; Retry after 1 hour
1w ; Expire after 1 week
1h ) ; Negative caching TTL of 1 day
;
0.168.192.in-addr.arpa. IN NS ns1.linuxconfig.org.
0.168.192.in-addr.arpa. IN NS ns2.linuxconfig.org.
10.0.168.192.in-addr.arpa. IN PTR linuxconfig.org.
- PTR: a NDS record used for a mapping of an IP address to a host name.
4. Updating a BIND Configuration File
At this point we should have two files ready:
- /etc/bind/zones/master/db.linuxconfig.org
- /etc/bind/zones/master/db.192.168.0
All we need to do now is to insert both zone file names into a bind's configuration file named.conf.local. To do that add following lines into this file:
zone "linuxconfig.org" {
type master;
file "/etc/bind/zones/master/db.linuxconfig.org";
};
zone "0.168.192.in-addr.arpa" {
type master;
file "/etc/bind/zones/master/db.192.168.0";
};
Replace a following blog of text withing a named.conf.options file:
// forwarders {
// 0.0.0.0;
// };
with new stable DNS server IP address forwarders {
8.8.4.4;
};
5. Checking bind's zone files and configuration
Before we attempt to start a bind nameserver with a new zone and
configuration here are some tools to check if we have not done some typo
or misconfiguration.
To check a configuration files run a following command:
named-checkconfWith this named-checkconf command the rule is: no news are good news. If no output had been produced your config files looks OK.
To check a DNS zone files we can use named-checkzone command:
named-checkzone linuxconfig.org /etc/bind/zones/master/db.linuxconfig.org zone linuxconfig.org/IN: loaded serial 1 OKreverse zone file check:
named-checkzone 0.168.192.in-addr.arpa /etc/bind/zones/master/db.192.168.0 zone 0.168.192.in-addr.arpa/IN: loaded serial 2 OK
6. Start / restart bind nameserver
At this point nothing can stop us to run bind9 dns server:/etc/init.d/bind9 start Starting domain name service...: bind9.Alternatively, if your bind server is already running use a following command to to assist you with its restart:
/etc/init.d/bind9 restart
Stopping domain name service...: bind9.
Starting domain name service...: bind9.
7. Testing a bind server configuration
A dig command from dnsutils package will become handy to help us to test a new configuration of bind nameserver.dig command can be used from any PC which has a network access the your DNS server but preferably your should start your testing from a localhost. In our this case the IP address of our name server is 192.168.135.130. First we will test host-to-IP resolution:
dig @192.168.135.130 www.linuxconfig.org ; <<>> DiG 9.6-ESV-R1 <<>> @192.168.135.130 www.linuxconfig.org ; (1 server found) ;; global options: +cmd ;; Got answer: ;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 60863 ;; flags: qr aa rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 2, AUTHORITY: 2, ADDITIONAL: 2 ;; QUESTION SECTION: ;www.linuxconfig.org. IN A ;; ANSWER SECTION: www.linuxconfig.org. 10800 IN CNAME linuxconfig.org. linuxconfig.org. 10800 IN A 192.168.0.10 ;; AUTHORITY SECTION: linuxconfig.org. 10800 IN NS ns2.linuxconfig.org. linuxconfig.org. 10800 IN NS ns1.linuxconfig.org. ;; ADDITIONAL SECTION: ns1.linuxconfig.org. 10800 IN A 192.168.0.10 ns2.linuxconfig.org. 10800 IN A 192.168.0.11 ;; Query time: 0 msec ;; SERVER: 192.168.135.130#53(192.168.135.130) ;; WHEN: Thu Aug 5 18:50:48 2010 ;; MSG SIZE rcvd: 135Next we test IP-to-host resolution:
dig @192.168.135.130 -x 192.168.0.10 ; <<>> DiG 9.6-ESV-R1 <<>> @192.168.135.130 -x 192.168.0.10 ; (1 server found) ;; global options: +cmd ;; Got answer: ;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 10810 ;; flags: qr aa rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 1, AUTHORITY: 2, ADDITIONAL: 2 ;; QUESTION SECTION: ;10.0.168.192.in-addr.arpa. IN PTR ;; ANSWER SECTION: 10.0.168.192.in-addr.arpa. 604800 IN PTR linuxconfig.org. ;; AUTHORITY SECTION: 0.168.192.in-addr.arpa. 604800 IN NS ns2.linuxconfig.org. 0.168.192.in-addr.arpa. 604800 IN NS ns1.linuxconfig.org. ;; ADDITIONAL SECTION: ns1.linuxconfig.org. 10800 IN A 192.168.0.10 ns2.linuxconfig.org. 10800 IN A 192.168.0.11 ;; Query time: 0 msec ;; SERVER: 192.168.135.130#53(192.168.135.130) ;; WHEN: Thu Aug 5 18:52:06 2010 ;; MSG SIZE rcvd: 140Congratulation. You have just created and configured your own DNS zone using bind nameserver.
