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Ajeet Raina Ajeet Singh Raina is a former Docker Captain, Community Leader and Arm Ambassador. He is a founder of Collabnix blogging site and has authored more than 570+ blogs on Docker, Kubernetes and Cloud-Native Technology. He runs a community Slack of 8900+ members and discord server close to 2200+ members. You can follow him on Twitter(@ajeetsraina).

How to setup Domain Name Server (DNS) on Linux?

2 min read

It has been long I was thinking of writing something about DNS(Domain Name Server). DNS is a database of the IP to Name and Name to IP conversion.I went through lots of tutorials related to DNS but couldnt satisfy myself unless and until I started writing commands and configuring files for the initial setup.After lot of tweaking and command line I was able to setup a simple DNS server.

dns_process

Lets travel into the world of DNS.

I have a RHEL 4 Machine ready with bind packages installed.The Minimal requirement are:

[root@localhost ~]# rpm -qa bind*

bind-libs-9.2.4-24.EL4

bind-utils-9.2.4-24.EL4

bind-9.2.4-24.EL4

bind-chroot-9.2.4-24.EL4

bind-devel-9.2.4-24.EL4

bind-libs-9.2.4-24.EL4

[root@localhost ~]#

The IP Details of my Machine are:

[root@localhost ~]# ifconfig

eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:16:17:C6:BE:47

inet addr:10.14.77.33 Bcast:10.14.77.127 Mask:255.255.255.128

inet6 addr: fe80::216:17ff:fec6:be47/64 Scope:Link

UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1

RX packets:36287 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0

TX packets:19141 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0

collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000

RX bytes:5408275 (5.1 MiB) TX bytes:2370680 (2.2 MiB)

Interrupt:201

lo Link encap:Local Loopback

inet addr:127.0.0.1 Mask:255.0.0.0

inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host

UP LOOPBACK RUNNING MTU:16436 Metric:1

RX packets:18714 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0

TX packets:18714 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0

collisions:0 txqueuelen:0

RX bytes:10174891 (9.7 MiB) TX bytes:10174891 (9.7 MiB)

[root@localhost ~]#

The Exact Steps I followed are mentioned Below:

1. Open a file /etc/hosts and make it look like this:

[root@localhost ~]# cat /etc/hosts

# Do not remove the following line, or various programs

# that require network functionality will fail.

127.0.0.1 localhost.localdomain localhost

[root@localhost ~]#

2.Edit the file /etc/resolv.conf:

[root@localhost ~]# cat /etc/resolv.conf

; generated by /sbin/dhclient-script

search tuxbuddy.raina.com

nameserver 10.14.77.33

[root@localhost ~]#

3. Run this Command:

[root@localhost ~]# cat /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth0

DEVICE=eth0

BOOTPROTO=dhcp

HWADDR=00:16:17:C6:BE:47

ONBOOT=yes

TYPE=Ethernet

PEERDNS=no

[root@localhost ~]#

4. Follow this step:

[root@localhost etc]# pwd

/var/named/chroot/etc

[root@localhost etc]# vi named.conf

//

// named.conf for Red Hat caching-nameserver

//

options {

directory “/var/named”;

dump-file “/var/named/data/cache_dump.db”;

statistics-file “/var/named/data/named_stats.txt”;

/*

* If there is a firewall between you and nameservers you want

* to talk to, you might need to uncomment the query-source

* directive below. Previous versions of BIND always asked

* questions using port 53, but BIND 8.1 uses an unprivileged

* port by default.

*/

// query-source address * port 53;

};

//

// a caching only nameserver config

//

controls {

inet 127.0.0.1 allow { localhost; } keys { rndckey; };

};

zone “.” IN {

type hint;

file “named.ca”;

};

zone “tuxbuddy.raina.com” IN {

type master;

file “tuxbuddy.raina.com.zone”;

allow-update { none; };

};

zone “33.77.14.10.in-addr.arpa” IN {

type master;

file “10.14.77.33.zone”;

allow-update { none; };

};

zone “localhost” IN {

type master;

file “localhost.zone”;

allow-update { none; };

};

zone “0.0.127.in-addr.arpa” IN {

type master;

file “named.local”;

allow-update { none; };

};

zone “0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.ip6.arpa” IN {

type master;

file “named.ip6.local”;

allow-update { none; };

};

zone “255.in-addr.arpa” IN {

type master;

file “named.broadcast”;

allow-update { none; };

};

zone “0.in-addr.arpa” IN {

type master;

file “named.zero”;

allow-update { none; };

};

include “/etc/rndc.key”;

Save the file.

5.Edit the Database Files:

[root@localhost named]# pwd

/var/named/chroot/var/named

[root@localhost named]#vi tuxbuddy.raina.com

$TTL 86400

@ IN SOA station1.tuxbuddy.raina.com. root.station1.tuxbuddy.raina.com. (

2009091100; Serial

28800 ; Refresh

14400 ; Retry

3600000 ;Expire

0 ) ; Negative

@ IN NS station1.tuxbuddy.raina.com.

@ IN A 10.14.77.33

station1.tuxbuddy.raina.com. IN A 10.14.77.33

www IN A 10.14.77.33

ftp IN A 10.14.77.33

pop IN A 10.14.77.33

www1 IN CNAME station1.tuxbuddy.raina.com.

www2 IN CNAME station2.tuxbuddy.raina.com.

www.station1.tuxbuddy.raina.com IN A 10.14.77.33

Innovation2.groupinfra.com. IN A 10.14.16.215

@ IN MX 10 station1.tuxbuddy.raina.com.

station1 IN MX 10 station1.tuxbuddy.raina.com.

~

[root@localhost named]#

6. Edit this file too:

[root@localhost named]# pwd

/var/named/chroot/var/named

[root@localhost named]#

[root@localhost named]# cat 10.14.77.33.zone

$TTL 86400

@ IN SOA station1.tuxbuddy.raina.com. root.station1.tuxbuddy.raina.com. (

4 10800 3600 604800 86400 )

IN NS station1.tuxbuddy.raina.com.

33.77.14.10.IN-ADDR.ARPA. IN PTR station1.tuxbuddy.raina.com.

[root@localhost named]#

JUST REMEMBER DONT MISS ANY . during the configuration.

DNS IS VERY SENSITIVE TO SINGLE SIGN.

Thats ALL !!!

YOUR SIMPLE DNS SERVER IS READY.

Testing the DNS SERVER

[root@localhost named]# dig -x 10.14.77.33

; <<>> DiG 9.2.4 <<>> -x 10.14.77.33

;; global options: printcmd

;; Got answer:

;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 48322 ;; flags: qr aa rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 1, AUTHORITY: 1, ADDITIONAL: 1 ;; QUESTION SECTION: ;33.77.14.10.in-addr.arpa. IN PTR ;; ANSWER SECTION: 33.77.14.10.in-addr.arpa. 86400 IN PTR station1.tuxbuddy.raina.com. ;; AUTHORITY SECTION: 33.77.14.10.in-addr.arpa. 86400 IN NS station1.tuxbuddy.raina.com.

;; ADDITIONAL SECTION:

station1.tuxbuddy.raina.com. 86400 IN A 10.14.77.33

;; Query time: 1 msec

;; SERVER: 10.14.77.33#53(10.14.77.33)

;; WHEN: Wed Oct 7 07:28:30 2009

;; MSG SIZE rcvd: 114

[root@localhost named]#

Just See..Your IP is resolving to Hostname and vice versa.

Other Way to see if things work or not !!

[root@localhost named]# host 10.14.77.33

33.77.14.10.in-addr.arpa domain name pointer station1.tuxbuddy.raina.com.

[root@localhost named]#

These too,

[root@localhost named]# host www

www.tuxbuddy.raina.com has address 10.14.77.33

[root@localhost named]#

Have Queries? Join https://launchpass.com/collabnix

Ajeet Raina Ajeet Singh Raina is a former Docker Captain, Community Leader and Arm Ambassador. He is a founder of Collabnix blogging site and has authored more than 570+ blogs on Docker, Kubernetes and Cloud-Native Technology. He runs a community Slack of 8900+ members and discord server close to 2200+ members. You can follow him on Twitter(@ajeetsraina).
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