Bind9 is a DNS Server for Linux. In this guide I show you how to install and configure Bind9 DNS Server in Ubuntu 18.04
📅 May 22, 2019
sudo apt install bind9 bind9utils
sudo vi /etc/default/bind9
Open /etc/bind/named.conf.options. First will want to setup DNS forwarders for requests that our DNS server does not have.
# Inside /etc/bind/named.conf.options
forwarders {
8.8.8.8;
8.8.4.4;
};
Save and Exit
Now open /etc/bind/named.conf.local. Add the following to create a zone. Change the zone name from example.com to whatever your domain is. In the file section put db.{yourdomain}'.
zone "example.com" {
type master;
file "/etc/bind/zones/db.example.com";
};
Now create the /etc/bind/zones/ directory.
sudo mkdir /etc/bind/zones
To make things easier on ourselves we will create our new zone file by copying an existing template file.
cd /etc/bind/zones
sudo cp ../db.local ./db.example.com
Now exit your newly copied zone file. You should see the following.
;
; BIND data file for local loopback interface
;
$TTL 604800
@ IN SOA localhost. root.localhost. (
2 ; Serial
604800 ; Refresh
86400 ; Retry
2419200 ; Expire
604800 ) ; Negative Cache TTL
;
@ IN NS localhost.
@ IN A 127.0.0.1
@ IN AAAA ::1
The first line we will be editing is @ IN SOA localhost. root.localhost. (. Change localhost. to example.com..
Chage root.localhost to webmaster.example.com. This section is referring to which email should be contacted regarding this zone file. root.localhost translates to root@localhost.
Now let's edit our actual DNS records. First, change the NS record.
# Change from this
@ IN NS localhost.
# To This
@ IN NS ns1.example.com
Now create A records for your name server & A Records for whatever else you need.
; Name server A records
ns1 IN A 192.168.56.50 ; replace the IP with the IP of your server
; Apache Web Server A Record
@ IN A 192.168.56.10 ; replace the IP with the IP of your server
At the end your file should look like this.
;
; BIND data file for local loopback interface
;
$TTL 604800
@ IN SOA example.com. webmaster.example.com. (
2 ; Serial
604800 ; Refresh
86400 ; Retry
2419200 ; Expire
604800 ) ; Negative Cache TTL
;
IN NS ns1.example.com.
ns1 IN A 192.168.56.50 ; replace the IP with the IP of your server
@ IN A 192.168.56.10 ; replace the IP with the IP of your server
Save and exit this file.
NS @ IN NS ns1.example.com
A Records @ IN A 192.168.56.50
MX Records 1w IN MX 10 mail.example.com
Now we need to check our BIND config for errors.
sudo named-checkconf
If there are no syntax errors then continue.
We also want to check our newly created zone configuration.
sudo named-checkzone example.com db.example.com
To apply your newly created changes you will need to restart BIND.
sudo systemctl restart bind9
Now add your server IP as the DNS server to a client on the same network and you should be all set.