Configure dns on linux server

How to use the Linux BIND command to install and configure DNS

The Domain Name System helps you get where you want to be on the internet. Make sure you know what it is and how to set up, configure, and test it.

The Domain Name System (DNS) is used to resolve (translate) hostnames to internet protocol (IP) addresses and vice versa. A DNS server, also known as a nameserver, maps IP addresses to hostnames or domain names.

In this article, you will learn the basics of DNS, from how DNS gets the IP address and hostname, to the concepts of forward and reverse lookup zones. It will also show you how to install and configure DNS, define and edit zone files, and verify whether the DNS can resolve to the correct address with the help of commands. If you are new to DNS, this article will help you play with it on your system using basic configurations.

How DNS works

When a client requests information from a nameserver, it usually connects to port 53, and then the nameserver resolves the name requested.

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Where does DNS get IP addresses?

You might wonder how DNS gets the IP of the corresponding hostname or domain name. How does DNS search among different IP addresses and associate your domain name correctly? Who stores those mappings between domain names and IP addresses?

The DNS workflow illustrates how communication happens within DNS and how it resolves the addresses.

• When the client searches for the domain www.example.com , the request will initially go to the internet service provider’s (ISP) resolver. It will respond to the user’s request to resolve a domain name.
• If the IP address is not found on the resolver, the request is forwarded to a root DNS server and later to the top-level domain (TLD) servers.
• TLD servers store information for top-level domains, such as .com or .net.
• Requests are forwarded to the nameservers, which know detailed information about domains and IP addresses.
• Nameservers respond to the ISP’s resolver, and then the resolver responds to the client with the requested IP.
• When the resolver doesn’t know the IP, it stores the IP and its domain in a cache to service future queries.

Forward and reverse lookups

The forward lookup zone uses the domain name to search for IP addresses, whereas the reverse lookup zone uses IP addresses to search for the domain name.

Install and configure DNS

BIND is a nameserver service responsible for performing domain-name-to-IP conversion on Linux-based DNS servers.

[root@servera ~] # yum install bind

The BIND package provides the named service. It reads the configuration from the /etc/named and /etc/named.conf files. Once this package is installed, you can start configuring DNS.

Configure the /etc/named.conf file

First, add or edit the two values in the options field. One is the DNS server address, and the other is the allow-query to any.

[root@servera ~] # vim /etc/named.conf listen-on port 53 < 127.0.0.1; 192.168.25.132; >; allow-query < localhost; any; >;

Here are the values from the above file:

• 192.168.25.132 – DNS server address
• any – matches every IP address

Define the forward and reverse zones

Define the forward and reverse zones in the /etc/named.conf or /etc/named.rfc1912.zones (you can define zones in either of those files). In this example, I am appending zone definition details to the /etc/named.rfc1912.zones file.

[root@servera ~] # vim /etc/named.rfc1912.zones zone "example.com" IN < type master; file "example.forward.zone"; allow-update < none; >; >; zone "25.168.192.in-addr.arpa" IN < type master; file "example.reverse.zone"; allow-update < none; >; >; 

Create forward and reverse zone files

You also need to create forward and reverse zone files in the /var/named directory.

Note: By default, the named.conf file includes the /var/named directory for checking zone files. Sample zone files named.localhost and named.loopback are created during the installation of the BIND package.

[root@servera ~] # vim /var/named/example.forward.zone

[root@servera ~] # vim /var/named/example.reverse.zone

Add the nameserver IP to /etc/resolv.conf

First, you must disable DNS processing by NetworkManager because it dynamically updates the /etc/resolv.conf file with DNS settings from its active connection profiles. To disable this and allow manual editing of /etc/resolv.conf , you must create a file (For example, 90-dns-none.conf ), as root in the /etc/NetworkManager/conf.d/ directory that contains the following:

Save the file and reload (restart) NetworkManager.

# systemctl reload NetworkManager

After you reload NetworkManager, it won’t update /etc/resolv.conf . Now, you can manually add the nameserver’s IP address to the /etc/resolv.conf file.

[root@servera ~] # vim /etc/resolv.conf # Generated by NetworkManager search localdomain example.com nameserver 192.168.25.132

[ Be prepared in case something goes wrong. Read An introduction to DNS troubleshooting. ]

Start/restart and enable the named service

If the named service is not running or is disabled, then start and enable it. If it is already active (running) and you made all these configurations, you need to restart the service to make changes.

[root@servera ~] # systemctl status named.service [root@servera ~] # systemctl start named.service [root@servera ~] # systemctl enable named.service [root@servera ~] # systemctl restart named.service 

Verify the DNS name resolution

You have installed the BIND package, configured named files, created lookup zones, and restarted the service to make configurations take effect. Now use the nslookup and dig commands to check whether DNS is working properly and verify whether you are getting the intended results.

• nslookup is a program to query internet domain name servers.
• dig is a tool for interrogating DNS servers. It performs DNS lookups and displays the answers that are returned from the nameserver.

Query with nslookup

[root@servera ~] # nslookup servera.example.com Server: 192.168.25.132 Address: 192.168.25.132#53 Name: servera.example.com Address: 192.168.25.132 [root@servera ~] # nslookup 192.168.25.132 132.25.168.192.in-addr.arpa name = servera.example.com.

Query with dig

Here is a forward lookup, where DNS responds with 192.168.11.132 as an IP for servera.example.com:

[root@servera ~] # dig servera.example.com . output truncated. ;; ANSWER SECTION: servera.example.com. 86400 IN A 192.168.25.132 ;; AUTHORITY SECTION: example.com. 86400 IN NS servera.example.com. . output truncated. 

This example displays a reverse lookup, where the DNS server responds with servera.example.com as the domain name for 192.168.25.132:

[root@servera ~] # dig -x 192.168.25.132 . output truncated. ;; ANSWER SECTION: 132.25.168.192.in-addr.arpa. 86400 IN PTR servera.example.com. ;; AUTHORITY SECTION: 25.168.192.in-addr.arpa. 86400 IN NS servera.example.com. ;; ADDITIONAL SECTION: servera.example.com. 86400 IN A 192.168.25.132 . output truncated. 

[ Network getting out of control? Check out Network automation for everyone, a free book from Red Hat. ]

Wrap up

In this article, you learned what DNS is and how it works. Also, you now know what forward and reverse lookup zones are and how they work. You also learned how to install the BIND package, which is responsible for setting up DNS on the system and configuring the named files and lookup zones. Finally, you learned two commands, nslookup and dig , to interrogate DNS resolutions.

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How do I configure my DNS settings in Ubuntu server?

According to this page it appears to be simple. However, /etc/bind does not exist on the default installation of Ubuntu 12.04.3 LTS server. So, without installing any further software, how can configure DNS and remove dnsmasq on ubuntu server? I am quite familiar with sudo & nano .

Also take a look at help.ubuntu.com/community/Dnsmasq. bind IS a nameserver. If you need nameserver functionality on your server, you must install a nameserver. It would help if you could describe what it is you are trying to achieve.

You were reading a manual to configure a DNS Server, not how to configure the DNS entries in the server. The manual you should have read are this

I don’t have the rep to post a comment on another answer, but in reply to Nullet’s answer on September 17th 2013, this worked for me. I was thinking that there was a problem with my router (a cheap, ISP provided one). I also think it worth mentioning that on the dns-nameservers line, you should use the IP of the public DNS. Don’t use the local address of the DNS, which is most likely on your router. I was connecting to the DNS on my router, which for some unknown reason wasn’t working with my server. Instead, I found out where the DNS on my router was getting its information from, and set dn

I think there is a better answer here unix.stackexchange.com/a/154538/82018 — basically you can override your dhcp settings to «prepend» a server in front of the ones you currently use. This is nice as you don’t have to rely solely on the new server, you just give it precedence for lookups.

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