What this is and isn't.
DNS is, to the uninitiated (you ;-), one of the more opaque areas of network administration. This HOWTO will try to make a few things clearer. It describes how to set up a simple DNS name server. For more complex setups you will need to read the Real Documentation. I'll get back to what this Real Documentation consists in the last chapter.
Before you start on this you should configure your machine so that
you can telnet in and out of it, and make successfuly make all kinds
of connections to the net, and you should be able to do telnet
127.0.0.1
and get your own machine. You also need a good
/etc/host.conf
, /etc/resolve.conf
and
/etc/hosts
files as a starting point, since I will not
explain their function here. If you don't already have all this set
up and working the networking/NET-2 HOWTO explains how to set it up.
Read it.
If you're using SLIP og PPP you need that working. Read the PPP HOWTO if it's not.
When I say 'your machine' I mean the macine you are trying to set up DNS on. Not any other machine you might have that's involved in your networking effort.
I assume you're not behind any kind of firewall that blocks name queries. If you are you will need a special configuration, see the section on firewalls and other peculiar net things.
Name serving on Unix is done by a program called named
This is
a part of the bind package which is coordinated by Paul Vixie for The
Internet Software Consortium. Named
is included in most Linux
distributions and is usualy installed as /usr/sbin/named
. If
you have a named you can probably use it; if you don't have one you
can get a binary off a Linix ftp site, or get the latest and greatest
source from
ftp:ftp.vix.com/pub/bin in either the release or testing
subdirectory, whatever fits your lifestyle best.
DNS is a net-wide database. Take care about what you put into it. If you put junk into it, you, and others will get junk out of it. Keep your DNS tidy and consistent and you will get good service from it. Learn to use it, admin it, debug it and you will be another good admin keeping the net from falling to it's knees overloaded by mismanagement.
In this document I state flatly a couple of things that are not completely true (they are at least half truths though). All in the interest of simplification. Things will probably work if you belive what I say.
Tip: Make backup copies of all the files I instruct you to change if you already have them, so if after going thru this nothing works you can get it back to your old, working state.