Section 8.5. Summary

The Domain Name System (DNS) provides an important user service that should be used on every system connected to the Internet. The vast majority of Unix implementations of DNS are based on the Berkeley Internet Name Domain (BIND) software. BIND provides both a DNS client and a DNS server.

The BIND client issues name queries and is implemented as library routines. It is called the resolver. The resolver is configured in the resolv.conf file. All systems run the resolver.

The BIND server answers name queries and runs as a daemon. It is called named. named is configured by the named.conf file, which defines where the server gets the DNS database information and the type of server being configured. The server types are master, slave, and caching servers. Because all servers are caching servers, a single configuration often encompasses more than one server type.

The original DNS database source files are found on the master server. The DNS database file is called a zone file. The zone file is constructed from standard resource records (RRs) that are defined in RFCs. The RRs share a common structure and are used to define all DNS database information.

The DNS server can be tested using nslookup. This test tool is included with the BIND release.

In this chapter we have seen how to configure and test DNS. In the next chapter, we configure several other services.