Requirements:
- A VPS with Debian 6 64 bit minimal (Any distro should do, but the example uses Debian 6)
Steps:
Install bind9:
apt-get update apt-get install bind9
Now, edit this file:
#cat /etc/bind/named.conf.options
options {
directory "/var/cache/bind";
// If there is a firewall between you and nameservers you want
// to talk to, you may need to fix the firewall to allow multiple
// ports to talk. See http://www.kb.cert.org/vuls/id/800113
// If your ISP provided one or more IP addresses for stable
// nameservers, you probably want to use them as forwarders.
// Uncomment the following block, and insert the addresses replacing
// the all-0's placeholder.
// forwarders {
// 0.0.0.0;
// };
auth-nxdomain no; # conform to RFC1035
listen-on-v6 { any; };
};
And:
# cat /etc/bind/named.conf.local
//
// Do any local configuration here
//
// Consider adding the 1918 zones here, if they are not used in your
// organization
//include "/etc/bind/zones.rfc1918";
// Domain Management drjoel.in
zone "drjoel.in" {
type master;
file "/var/lib/bind/db.drjoel.in";
allow-update { key rndc-key; };
};
# This is the zone definition for reverse DNS. replace 31.167.199 with your network address in reverse notation - e.g my network address is 199.167.31
zone "31.167.199.in-addr.arpa" {
type master;
file "/etc/bind/zones/rev.14.31.167.199.in-addr.arpa";
};
You can check /etc/bind/named.conf.local for errors with:
#named-checkconf
If it finds errors, it will report like this:
#named-checkconf /etc/bind/named.conf.local:15: missing ';' before '}'
Now edit the master zone file for drjoel.in. This is the main zone record file (resource record file). No blank lines are permitted, except for a newline at the bottom. The latter is compulsory.
#cat "/var/lib/bind/db.drjoel.in"
drjoel.in. IN SOA ns1.joel.co.in. admin.drjoel.in. (
2007010401 ; Serial
3600 ; Refresh [1h]
600 ; Retry [10m]
86400 ; Expire [1d]
600 ) ; Negative Cache TTL [1h]
;
drjoel.in. IN NS ns1.joel.co.in.
drjoel.in. IN NS ns2.joel.co.in.
drjoel.in. IN MX 10 aspmx.l.google.com.
drjoel.in. IN MX 20 alt1.aspmx.l.google.com.
drjoel.in. IN MX 20 alt2.aspmx.l.google.com.
drjoel.in. IN MX 30 aspmx2.googlemail.com.
drjoel.in. IN MX 30 aspmx3.googlemail.com.
drjoel.in. IN MX 30 aspmx4.googlemail.
drjoel.in. IN A 198.23.228.223
ns1. IN A 199.167.31.14
ns2. IN A 38.114.103.106
*.drjoel.in. 3600 IN CNAME drjoel.in.
The main records to note are the first line:
drjoel.in. IN SOA ns1.joel.co.in. admin.drjoel.in. (
Here, the first word is “drjoel.in.”. Note the period at the end. Note that all domain names have a period at the end. The fourth coloumn has the primary nameserver. The last coloumn “admin.drjoel.in.” actually denotes the email address “[email protected]”.
Now edit the file for reverse records:
#cat "/etc/bind/zones/rev.14.31.167.199.in-addr.arpa"
//replace example.com with yoour domain name, ns1 with your DNS server name.
// The number before IN PTR example.com is the machine address of the DNS server. in my case, it's 1, as my IP address is 192.168.0.1.
@ IN SOA ns1.drjoel.in. admin.drjoel.in. (
2006081401;
28800;
604800;
604800;
86400
)
IN NS ns1.drjoel.in
14 IN PTR drjoel.in
Here, my server’s ipv4 address is 199.167.31.14. The last number 14 is what is typed in the last line on the file.
The resource record file too can be checked for errors. This is with:
named-checkzone
It is invoked as follows. A sample error message is shown:
#named-checkzone relsoft.in /var/lib/bind/db.relsoft.in /var/lib/bind/db.relsoft.in:1: no TTL specified; using SOA MINTTL instead /var/lib/bind/db.relsoft.in:17: ignoring out-of-zone data (www) /var/lib/bind/db.relsoft.in:18: ignoring out-of-zone data (ns1) /var/lib/bind/db.relsoft.in:19: ignoring out-of-zone data (ns2) zone relsoft.in/IN: NS 'ns1.relsoft.in' is a CNAME (illegal) zone relsoft.in/IN: NS 'ns2.relsoft.in' is a CNAME (illegal) zone relsoft.in/IN: not loaded due to errors.
Now, I need to edit /etc/resolv.conf:
#cat /etc/resolv.conf search drjoel.in nameserver 199.167.31.14
Here, the nameserver is the ip of this server
Once done, restart bind9:
service bind9 restart
Adding a second domain to use the same nameserver. The zone files etc are created just like previously. The only difference is in the resolv.conf file, which now looks like:
cat /etc/resolv.conf search drjoel.in relsoft.in nameserver 199.167.31.14
Note that relsoft.in has been added.
Adding a vanity DNS server:
#cat /var/lib/bind/db.relsoft.in
relsoft.in. IN SOA ns1.joel.co.in. admin.relsoft.in. (
2007010401 ; Serial
3600 ; Refresh [1h]
600 ; Retry [10m]
86400 ; Expire [1d]
600 ) ; Negative Cache TTL [1h]
;
relsoft.in. IN NS ns1.relsoft.in.
relsoft.in. IN NS ns2.relsoft.in.
relsoft.in. IN MX 10 aspmx.l.google.com.
relsoft.in. IN MX 20 alt1.aspmx.l.google.com.
relsoft.in. IN MX 20 alt2.aspmx.l.google.com.
relsoft.in. IN MX 30 aspmx2.googlemail.com.
relsoft.in. IN MX 30 aspmx3.googlemail.com.
relsoft.in. IN MX 30 aspmx4.googlemail.com.
relsoft.in. IN A 198.23.228.223
www. IN A 198.23.228.223
ns1.relsoft.in. IN A 199.167.31.14
ns2.relsoft.in. IN A 38.114.103.106
mail.relsoft.in. 3600 IN CNAME ghs.google.com
*.relsoft.in. 3600 IN CNAME relsoft.in.
zone "relsoft.in" {
type master;
file "/var/lib/bind/db.drjoel.in";
allow-update { key rndc-key; };
allow-transfer { 199.167.31.14; };
};
Note the line:
allow-transfer { 199.167.31.14; };
Also note that the zone record for relsoft.in now has A records of ns1 and ns2 pointing to the ips of the actual nameservers (at ns1.joel.co.in, and ns2.joel.co.in), as did drjoel.in. But in addition, note that ns records now point to ns1.relsoft.in instead of ns1.joel.co.in. That’s a vanity DNS server. It looks like relsoft.in has its own nameserver, while in reality it is using the ns1.joel.co.in nameserver.
Before adding a Vanity server:
#dig ANY relsoft.in ; <<>> DiG 9.9.2-P1 <<>> ANY relsoft.in ;; global options: +cmd ;; Got answer: ;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 20966 ;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 10, AUTHORITY: 2, ADDITIONAL: 6 ;; OPT PSEUDOSECTION: ; EDNS: version: 0, flags:; udp: 4096 ;; QUESTION SECTION: ;relsoft.in. IN ANY ;; ANSWER SECTION: relsoft.in. 600 IN A 198.23.228.223 relsoft.in. 600 IN MX 30 aspmx3.googlemail.com. relsoft.in. 600 IN MX 20 alt1.aspmx.l.google.com. relsoft.in. 600 IN MX 30 aspmx4.googlemail. relsoft.in. 600 IN MX 10 aspmx.l.google.com. relsoft.in. 600 IN MX 30 aspmx2.googlemail.com. relsoft.in. 600 IN MX 20 alt2.aspmx.l.google.com. relsoft.in. 600 IN SOA ns1.joel.co.in. admin.relsoft.in. 2007010401 3600 600 86400 600 relsoft.in. 600 IN NS ns2.joel.co.in. relsoft.in. 600 IN NS ns1.joel.co.in. ;; AUTHORITY SECTION: relsoft.in. 600 IN NS ns1.joel.co.in. relsoft.in. 600 IN NS ns2.joel.co.in. ;; ADDITIONAL SECTION: alt2.aspmx.l.google.com. 42 IN A 173.194.64.27 alt2.aspmx.l.google.com. 70 IN AAAA 2607:f8b0:4003:c02::1a aspmx3.googlemail.com. 100 IN A 173.194.64.27 ns1.joel.co.in. 85648 IN A 199.167.31.14 ns2.joel.co.in. 920 IN A 38.114.103.106 ;; Query time: 163 msec ;; SERVER: 89.233.43.71#53(89.233.43.71) ;; WHEN: Sun May 5 07:26:17 2013 ;; MSG SIZE rcvd: 427
After:
#dig ANY relsoft.in ; <<>> DiG 9.9.2-P1 <<>> ANY relsoft.in ;; global options: +cmd ;; Got answer: ;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 55308 ;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 10, AUTHORITY: 2, ADDITIONAL: 2 ;; OPT PSEUDOSECTION: ; EDNS: version: 0, flags:; udp: 4096 ;; QUESTION SECTION: ;relsoft.in. IN ANY ;; ANSWER SECTION: relsoft.in. 600 IN A 198.23.228.223 relsoft.in. 600 IN MX 30 aspmx3.googlemail.com. relsoft.in. 600 IN MX 20 alt2.aspmx.l.google.com. relsoft.in. 600 IN MX 20 alt1.aspmx.l.google.com. relsoft.in. 600 IN MX 30 aspmx2.googlemail.com. relsoft.in. 600 IN MX 10 aspmx.l.google.com. relsoft.in. 600 IN MX 30 aspmx4.googlemail.com. relsoft.in. 600 IN SOA ns1.joel.co.in. admin.relsoft.in. 2007010401 3600 600 86400 600 relsoft.in. 600 IN NS ns1.relsoft.in. relsoft.in. 600 IN NS ns2.relsoft.in. ;; AUTHORITY SECTION: relsoft.in. 600 IN NS ns2.relsoft.in. relsoft.in. 600 IN NS ns1.relsoft.in. ;; ADDITIONAL SECTION: alt2.aspmx.l.google.com. 115 IN AAAA 2607:f8b0:4003:c02::1a ;; Query time: 353 msec ;; SERVER: 89.233.43.71#53(89.233.43.71) ;; WHEN: Sun May 5 07:45:14 2013 ;; MSG SIZE rcvd: 357
Note that:
relsoft.in. 600 IN NS ns1.joel.co.in. relsoft.in. 600 IN NS ns2.joel.co.in.
has been replaced by:
relsoft.in. 600 IN NS ns2.relsoft.in. relsoft.in. 600 IN NS ns1.relsoft.in.
Troubleshooting
Immediately after editing records, you have to check for syntax errors with:
named-checkconf named-checkzone kgimoa.com /var/lib/bind/db.kgimoa.com
Checking error logs:
Bind9 error logs on Debian are stored in /var/log/daemon.log
#tail -n 10 /var/log/daemon.log May 5 07:41:21 ns1 named[5846]: zone drjoel.in/IN: loaded serial 2007010401 May 5 07:41:21 ns1 named[5846]: /var/lib/bind/db.relsoft.in:1: no TTL specified; using SOA MINTTL instead May 5 07:41:21 ns1 named[5846]: /var/lib/bind/db.relsoft.in:17: ignoring out-of-zone data (www) May 5 07:41:21 ns1 named[5846]: zone relsoft.in/IN: loaded serial 2007010401 May 5 07:41:21 ns1 named[5846]: zone localhost/IN: loaded serial 2 May 5 07:41:21 ns1 named[5846]: managed-keys-zone ./IN: loading from master file managed-keys.bind failed: file not found May 5 07:41:21 ns1 named[5846]: managed-keys-zone ./IN: loaded serial 0 May 5 07:41:21 ns1 named[5846]: running May 5 07:41:21 ns1 named[5846]: zone drjoel.in/IN: sending notifies (serial 2007010401) May 5 07:41:21 ns1 named[5846]: zone relsoft.in/IN: sending notifies (serial 2007010401)
Automating nameserver synchronization
You can use an rsync in cron:
Example on my primary nameserver:
#crontab -l # m h dom mon dow command */5 * * * * /usr/bin/rsync -az /var/lib/bind [email protected]:/var/lib/bind */5 * * * * /usr/bin/rsync -az /etc/bind/named.conf.local [email protected]:/etc/bind/named.conf.local
Those two lines are enough to sync DNS entries between the two nameservers. In terms of redundancy, I’m not sure how right I am, since if one of the servers has wrong entries, both entries get corrupt. However, since nameserver records are supposed to be identical, this is the only way I can assure that they are in sync perfectly.
Summary of Creation of a new zonefile (Checklist)
- Create the zone file from scratch or a template
- Edit the zone file and add proper entries
- Check the zone file with named-checkzone
- Create the entries for the zone file in /etc/bind/named.conf.local
- Restart bind9 manually, or optionally create a cron job that restarts the job every x mins
- Optionally create a symbolic link to /home.
Joel G Mathew, known in tech circles by the pseudonym Droidzone, is an opensource and programming enthusiast.
He is a full stack developer, whose favorite languages are currently Python and Vue.js. He is also fluent in Javascript, Flutter/Dart, Perl, PHP, SQL, C and bash shell scripting. He loves Linux, and can often be found tinkering with linux kernel code, and source code for GNU applications. He used to be an active developer on XDA forums, and his tinkered ROMS used to be very popular in the early 2000s.
His favorite pastime is grappling with GNU compilers, discovering newer Linux secrets, writing scripts, hacking roms, and programs (nothing illegal), reading, blogging. and testing out the latest gadgets.
When away from the tech world, Dr Joel G. Mathew is a practising ENT Surgeon, busy with surgeries and clinical practise.