Domain Name System (DNS) is a system that associates human-readable domain names with IP addresses, allowing users to easily navigate the Internet or their own private network. DNS is important in private networks as it allows devices on the network to communicate with each other using names instead of IP addresses.
Setting up a proper Domain Name System (DNS) is an important part of managing server configuration and infrastructure, as it allows you to easily lookup network interfaces and IP addresses by name.
Configuring your network with fully qualified domain names instead of IP addresses makes it easier to set up and manage your services and applications. Setting up your own DNS server can make your network management even more efficient.
This article will help you install and configure your own DNS server on Ubuntu. The guide is applicable to older versions of Ubuntu and many other Linux distro based on Ubuntu, such as Linux Mint or Pop! OS.
Install DNS Server Software
BIND (Berkeley Internet Name Domain) is a comprehensive software suite that includes the world’s most widely used DNS (Domain Name System) server software. The most recent major version, BIND 9, was initially released in 2000 and is regularly maintained by the Internet Systems Consortium.
Bind9 is the package name for the DNS server on Ubuntu and is available in the base repository. Installing bind9 is one of the first thing you need to do in order to create your own DNS server. Run the following command to install bind9 and its dependencies.
sudo apt install -y bind9 bind9utils bind9-doc dnsutils
Configure DNS Server on Ubuntu
Bind9 stores its configuration files and zone lookup settings in /etc/bind/ directory. You should use the /etc/bind/named.conf.local file to store your local DNS zone information, rather than using the global /etc/bind/named.conf file.
DNS zones provide a specific scope for managing and defining DNS records.. Since our domains will all be within the linuxpip.local domain, we will use that as our forward zone. Run the following commands to edit zone configuration.
sudo nano /etc/bind/named.conf.local
We’ll need to put both forward zone and reverse zone in the files. The contents of the file should look similar to this.
zone "linuxpip.local" IN { // Domain name
type master; // Primary DNS
file "/etc/bind/forward.linuxpip.local.db"; // Forward lookup file
allow-update { none; }; // Since this is the primary DNS, it should be none.
};
zone "0.168.192.in-addr.arpa" IN { //Reverse lookup name, should match your network in reverse order
type master; // Primary DNS
file "/etc/bind/reverse.linuxpip.local.db"; //Reverse lookup file
allow-update { none; }; //Since this is the primary DNS, it should be none.
};Code language: JavaScript (javascript)The first block is configuration for forward zone and the latter is reverse zone.
Create Zone lookup file
With zones created, you can then generate data files holding DNS records for the forward and reverse zones.
Forward Zone lookup file
Copy the sample entries to zone file called forward.linuxpip.local.db for the forward zone under /etc/bind directory.
Here’s a list of record types in the zone file:
SOA – Start of Authority NS – Name Server A – A record MX – Mail for Exchange CN – Canonical Name
Domain names should end with a dot (.). Run the following commands to update the zone file.
sudo cp /etc/bind/db.local /etc/bind/forward.linuxpip.local.db sudo nano /etc/bind/forward.linuxpip.local.db
Put the contents below in the file. You can edit the details to fit your scenario.
$TTL 604800
@ IN SOA ns1.linuxpip.local. root.linuxpip.local. (
3 ; Serial
604800 ; Refresh
86400 ; Retry
2419200 ; Expire
604800 ) ; Negative Cache TTL
;
;@ IN NS localhost.
;@ IN A 127.0.0.1
;@ IN AAAA ::1
;Name Server Information
@ IN NS ns1.linuxpip.local.
;IP address of Name Server
ns1 IN A 192.168.0.10
;Mail Exchanger
linuxpip.local. IN MX 10 mail.linuxpip.local.
;A – Record HostName To Ip Address
www IN A 192.168.0.100
mail IN A 192.168.0.150
;CNAME record
ftp IN CNAME www.linuxpip.local.Code language: PHP (php)Reverse Zone lookup file
Copy the example entries to the reverse zone file called reverse.linuxpip.local.db, and create reverse pointers for the above forward zone records.
PTR – Pointer SOA – Start of Authority
sudo cp /etc/bind/db.127 /etc/bind/reverse.linuxpip.local.db sudo nano /etc/bind/reverse.linuxpip.local.db
Update the file with the content shown below.
$TTL 604800
@ IN SOA linuxpip.local. root.linuxpip.local. (
3 ; Serial
604800 ; Refresh
86400 ; Retry
2419200 ; Expire
604800 ) ; Negative Cache TTL
;
;@ IN NS localhost.
;1.0.0 IN PTR localhost.
;Name Server Information
@ IN NS ns1.linuxpip.local.
;Reverse lookup for Name Server
10 IN PTR ns1.linuxpip.local.
;PTR Record IP address to HostName
100 IN PTR www.linuxpip.local.
150 IN PTR mail.linuxpip.local.Code language: PHP (php)Verify BIND Configuration
In order to check BIND configuration for syntax error, use named-checkconf command to check named.conf* files for any syntax errors.
sudo named-checkconf
Similarly, you can use a built-in command in BIND called named-checkzone to check for syntax errors in zone files.
Forward zone
sudo named-checkzone linuxpip.local /etc/bind/forward.linuxpip.local.db
Output:
zone linuxpip.local/IN: loaded serial 3 OK
Reverse zone
named-checkzone 0.168.192.in-addr.arpa /etc/bind/reverse.linuxpip.local.db
Output:
zone 0.168.192.in-addr.arpa/IN: loaded serial 3 OK
Run the following commands to restart bind9 service and enable it on system startup.
sudo systemctl restart bind9 sudo systemctl enable bind9
Check the status of the bind9 service using the following commands.
sudo systemctl status bind9
DNS Record Update
Whenever you change a DNS record, do not forget to change the serial number in the zone file and reload the zone.
Remember to replace linuxpip.local and 0.168.192.in-addr.arpa with your zone names.
**### Forward Zone ###**
sudo rndc reload **linuxpip.local**
**### Reverse Zone ###**
sudo rndc reload **0.168.192.in-addr.arpa**Code language: CSS (css)Check DNS Server
The next step is to verify that our DNS server responds properly to imcoming requests. In order to do that, go to any client machine and add our new DNS server IP Address in /etc/resolv.conf file.
sudo nano /etc/resolv.conf
Add the line below to the very last line of the file.
nameserver 192.168.0.10Code language: CSS (css)Then, use dig to perform a DNS lookup.
dig www.linuxpip.localCode language: CSS (css)You should see an output that looks like this if things go well.
; <<>> DiG 9.10.3-P4-Ubuntu <<>> www.linuxpip.local
;; global options: +cmd
;; Got answer:
;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 18022
;; flags: qr aa rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 1, AUTHORITY: 1, ADDITIONAL: 2
;; OPT PSEUDOSECTION:
; EDNS: version: 0, flags:; udp: 4096
;; QUESTION SECTION:
;www.linuxpip.local. IN A
;; ANSWER SECTION:
www.linuxpip.local. 604800 IN A 192.168.0.100
;; AUTHORITY SECTION:
linuxpip.local. 604800 IN NS ns1.linuxpip.local.
;; ADDITIONAL SECTION:
ns1.linuxpip.local. 604800 IN A 192.168.0.10
;; Query time: 0 msec
;; SERVER: 127.0.1.1#53(127.0.1.1)
;; WHEN: Mon Dec 30 12:42:18 EST 2019
;; MSG SIZE rcvd: 96Code language: CSS (css)Confirm the reverse lookup with dig command.
dig -x 192.168.0.100Code language: CSS (css); <<>> DiG 9.10.3-P4-Ubuntu <<>> -x 192.168.0.100
;; global options: +cmd
;; Got answer:
;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 37122
;; flags: qr aa rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 1, AUTHORITY: 1, ADDITIONAL: 2
;; OPT PSEUDOSECTION:
; EDNS: version: 0, flags:; udp: 4096
;; QUESTION SECTION:
;100.0.168.192.in-addr.arpa. IN PTR
;; ANSWER SECTION:
100.0.168.192.in-addr.arpa. 604800 IN PTR www.linuxpip.local.
;; AUTHORITY SECTION:
0.168.192.in-addr.arpa. 604800 IN NS ns1.linuxpip.local.
;; ADDITIONAL SECTION:
ns1.linuxpip.local. 604800 IN A 192.168.0.10
;; Query time: 0 msec
;; SERVER: 127.0.1.1#53(127.0.1.1)
;; WHEN: Mon Dec 30 12:43:20 EST 2019
;; MSG SIZE rcvd: 120Code language: CSS (css)We hope that the article helps you successfully set up a DNS server in Ubuntu. You may be interested in our Linux software roundups, including 8 Best Open Source CMDB software, Best Linux Video Converters or Best Python Graphics Libraries. If you have any suggestion, please feel free to leave a comment below.
