Nameserver

[Rodolfo J. Paiz]

At 23:17 3/5/2004, you wrote:
>Hello,
>
>I'd like to set up BIND locally to resolve names between machines on my
>local LAN.  I was also thinking on taking advantage of such a setup to cache
>entries for outbound traffic.  The to-be nameserver machine also serves as a
>gateway for Internet traffic so, I am using my provider's nameservers as the
>primary nameserver.
>
>Is such a setup possible?  I just want to resolve local names and cache
>entries going outbound while still using my providers nameservers.

Sure, it's easy as pie. The first thing to do is to install the very latest 
updated version of the "bind" RPM, and also install the 
"caching-nameserver" RPM. Right there you will have the local caching 
nameserver part completely configured. "chkconfig named on" and "service 
named start" and you're on your way, with the only remaining step being to 
configure your local machines to point to this box as their DNS server.

Step two, creating a local domain, is not that hard either. All you need to 
do is to add one "zone" to BIND. This involves writing a couple of lines in 
/etc/named.conf and writing the zonefile itself, which is pretty easy when 
you've done it before but can be confusing to the newbie. My best advice, 
if you want good and quick results, would be to install Webmin 
(www.webmin.com) on this system and use that to create the local zone you 
want. Or you can read the DNS HOWTO at The Linux Documentation Project 
(www.tldp.org) in order to get a lot more detail.

If you really have no idea how DNS works, then I can offer a very small bit 
of help: a "DNS First Steps" document I posted on my website. You can reach 
this doc from www.simpaticus.com/linux and it will help clear up some of 
the terms and concepts for you. Of course, it could improve in MANY ways 
and is just a first draft so far, so please give feedback and feel free to 
ask me more questions so I can make the doc better.

Do you have a domain name registered on the Internet which you'd like to 
use, or are these strictly "internal-only" names?


-- 
Rodolfo J. Paiz
rpaiz at simpaticus.com
http://www.simpaticus.com