Setting up a local DNS server

KellyT · 11-02-2009, 09:50 AM

Hi,

Further to my previous post, I've been setting up a local web development server using Ubuntu Server 9.10. Thanks to another contributor to this forum, it's now all working.

I've installed all of the module necessary (I think) to enable it to act as a DNS server. What I would like to do now is set up a DNS zone inside my network, so that I can go to http://servername instead of http://localhost

I would also like to set it up so that I can have http://servername/www.sitename.com/ and have www.sitename.com as the site root. I've previously achieved something similar using Vhosts on my old setup (which used XAMPP on my local machine). I presumed I could use DNS instead once I'd set up my local webserver.

Please bear with me if I'm not referring to things correctly - I'm a web developer who is only just learning about web server management.

Thanks,

Kelly

melk600 · 11-02-2009, 12:31 PM

It won't help you learn all the ins and outs of DNS setup, but I would recommend using dnsmasq. It will do what your asking here probably by installing it in its default form and you might not have to edit anything. At least you definitely won't have to edit much.

Mike E.

zomane · 11-02-2009, 05:34 PM

If its for local network needs and didn't using real domain name(actually with real domain is almost the same) you can setup BIND like this (I'm DNS newbie so you must also read docs created from professionals ) . This is just sample setup :

/etc/named.conf

Code:

logging {
        channel all {
                    file "/var/log/named.log" versions 4 size 20m;
                    severity debug 5;
                    print-time yes ;
                    print-severity yes;
                    print-category yes;
                    };
        category default   {
                    all;        
                    };
                
        };

options {
        directory "/var/cache/bind";
        recursion yes;
        allow-query { any; };   
};
// required zone for recursive queries
zone "." {
        type hint;
        file "/etc/bind/root.servers";
};
// required local host domain
zone "localhost" in{
        type master;
        file "/etc/bind/localhost.master";
        allow-update{none;};
};
// localhost reverse map
zone "0.0.127.in-addr.arpa" in{
        type master;
        file "/etc/bind/localhost.rev";
        allow-update{none;};
};
//your domain here
zone "site.com" {
        type master;
        file "/etc/bind/site.com";
};
//your domain reverse zone - PTR
zone "0.168.192.in-addr.arpa" {
        type master;
        file "/etc/bind/0.168.192.in-addr.arpa";
};

This are zone files I put here only that for localhost, but you can get the the idea how to create you domain zones:
/etc/bind/localhost.master

Code:

$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

/etc/bind/localhost.rev

Code:

$TTL    604800
@       IN      SOA     localhost. root.localhost. (
                              1         ; Serial
                         604800         ; Refresh
                          86400         ; Retry
                        2419200         ; Expire
                         604800 )       ; Negative Cache TTL
;
@       IN      NS      localhost.
1.0.0   IN      PTR     localhost.

If you are using your bind for recursive queries you will need root.servers - you can find it via google its public.

Or as melk600 said you can use dnsmasq it has simpler setup
Setup is something like this-per host :

Code:

dhcp-host=4C:00:10:52:0B:87,192.168.168.96
address=/site.com/192.168.168.96

In few words first line says give to 4C:00:10:52:0B:87(MAC address ) this ip 192.168.168.96
Second line says :
For this IP 192.168.168.96 name is site.com

Also you have global options like

Code:

#your resolv.conf - where are described ISP nameservers
resolv-file=/root/loadbal_routing/resolv.conf.ext
#interface to listen for queries
interface=eth0
#dont listen here
except-interface=lo
# If you don't want dnsmasq to read /etc/hosts, uncomment the
# following line.
no-hosts
#dhcp pool range
dhcp-range=192.168.168.1,192.168.168.190,255.255.255.0,12h
#where to store leases
dhcp-leasefile=/var/state/dnsmasq/dnsmasq.leases
#if you want logging
log-queries

You can setup multiple names to respond from one IP in BIND zone cofiguration
like this:

Code:

@       IN      A       192.168.168.1
but on this IP also responds
www              IN      CNAME  site.com.
ftp              IN      CNAME  site.com.
git              IN      CNAME  site.com.

So www.site.com, ftp.site.com and git.site.com will have same ip address 192.168.168.1

abakalidis · 11-03-2009, 03:43 AM

Hi, apart from the CNAME entries in your DNS configuration, I would also recommend that you set up Virtual Hosting on your apache server. This is going to make your life much easier, especially if you need to work with many different projects at the same time.

You can find extensive information about it your local apache documentation. (Redhat based distros contains the httpd-manual package that installs the HTML version of the apache docs available at URL http://your_server/manual.

Athanassios