The vast majority of the configuration files will be located in the /etc directory.

That is what started this issue. When I installed bind it did not install any files into /etc. I had to create named.conf manually. If there are other files installed by bind in /etc i am unaware of them at this time. As far as I can tell this is done by design, via centos package. Have not had a chance to go over the links you provided yet. But will do so soon.

Ultimately, I think you will find that the command line becomes your tool of choice.

I agree with you 999999999%. I personally do not even like gui's. I am an old fart from the DOS 12 days. The only reason i am using the GUI is to help learn. I allready have found webmin and installed it. The first time i installed it there was a gui tool for dns. But since i have reinstalled i cannot get it to come back up. Is there a GUI that installs with bind into the OS?

There should be some sample configuration files for Bind in /usr/share/doc/bind-9.x.x/sample/etc/ and /usr/share/doc/bind-9.x.x/sample/var/. You will likely want to copy these to your /etc and /var directories. The exact layout is somewhat distribution dependent. What I mean by this is that some distros may include something like a named.conf.local which is intended for you to put your configuration stuff while leaving the base one alone so that you don't have problems if the package updates. In addition to the named.conf file you should also have a set of 'db' files to contain your zones and a set for your 'hints.'. These will be things like db.1.0.0.127 or something along those lines. These are the helper files that Bind uses to get started and do things like locate the root servers and have zone stubs for RFC-1918 addresses that shouldn't go out to the Internet.

You might also want to look into the caching name server package, which I read as being different than bind, but I am not sure how other than supposedly it does contain the configuration files.

There is also a syntax checking tool that you can use like this: named-checkconf /etc/named.conf if you run into difficulties.

I came across this document that suggests that the answer to whether or not Centos has a GUI for configuring Bind is yes. It does mention not mixing the GUI configuration tool with your manual edits of named.conf, so be careful.

DOS 12, you are making me reminiscence. I got my first computer at about the age of 9 or 10 and it was a Commodore 64, with a 5-1/4" floppy drive and I used an old BW TV for the first monitor. That machine lasted me many years until it got updated to a C-128 which lasted me through my first year of college when it was destroyed in a thunderstorm. This was back in the day when if you had a 12K baud modem, you were hot and could connect to the BBS at light speed. At that point, I upgraded to my first 'PC', a 386SX-20 running DOS 4. I also remember CP/M and running Word Star and Colossal Cave on it. To be honest I miss the thing and I sometimes fire up the C-64 emulator and play some of the old games like M.U.L.E, Archon, Legacy of the Acients, and Lords of Conquest.

1 members found this post helpful.

I still have a commodore. I keep it around to remind me of what computing is. Are we dating ourselves? Not good just had a bday. oh my i am an old man. I talk to some people and they are like what's dos. I will review your links and get back to you. Could be a little while test time is inbetween the 6 mil other things i have going on Thanks I will be back as soon as i can do some testing.

Be aware that one of the issues with Bind is that it is often 'chrooted' (for a marginal security advantage). When, and once, a package is run chrooted, any files that the package looks for are relative to the chroot location, so the location that you would expect certain files to be found in varies from the default. And, of course, the actual chroot directory varies from distro to distro.

So, of course, if you are looking for 'named.conf' (or whatever) trying 'locate named.conf' (assuming that you have locate installed and configured) may show up more than one example, and at least one might be in a place that is surprising to you.

If those were Bind servers, it probably is the case that Bind is the correct choice for you. It probably isn't for most people, in the majority of use cases, but that doesn't seem to influence what people choose to use.

Hi,

Some good advice here, particularly to choose a Stable Release O/S, i.e. one with a few years of support for security/functionality. And that you go with the distro that you are more comfortable with, most of the big players come reasonably secure and with some careful configuration you will have a fast stable and secure DNS platform.

I think the choice of BIND9 is fine, I have used this on both CentOS and RedHat distro's in an internet facing role for my employer for a number of years and found them to be fast stable and well supported. BIND is very flexible and can be configured to serve different records dependent on the source IP of the client, see the explanation on "views" in the below link.

The latest Centos documentation is available here:CentOS BIND

There is plenty of information on securing Linux on the internet though I'm sure people can help you here if needed with a minimal list of services that need to be running/secured.

Oh and I have installed Webmin using the RPM file from the Webmin website, this is installed on one of the BIND Servers. This is to allow Microsoft skilled admins to configure the Name servers. When changes are made to one server the changes are replicated to its partner via a script - this ensures everything stays in sync and changes only need to be made once.

If these are your first Linux servers (I'm not sure they are), also consider setting up logging (Syslog) if needed and management via SSH to your internal network only.

In the zone files what is the puropose of IN or what does it stand for? i.e. bob IN A 10.2.3.4
What is the difference between @ and $origin at the begining of a zone file? all i ever see in the examples is @. My understanding is that @ sets the namespace to = the filename is that correct?

IN denotes the class of record, IN for INternet, another class would be HS for Hesiod.

They are different ways of place marking the zone in your zone files, I have a preference of $ORIGIN but I believe you can use either with equal effectiveness, I believe the @ takes the name of the zone from the zone "" stanza in the named.conf as you can call the filename whatever you like. I have put the below links in which do a better job of explaining than me

Zone Files Explained
SOA Explained

Both of these are good resources, I have used the Zytrax one a lot.

1 members found this post helpful.

Try to get your domain name server details from the website whoisxy.com for free of cost

I'd re-iterate the default install for RHEL/Centos BIND is chrooted for security.
The RHEL admin manual (same as CENTOS) here has really good explanations of that and DNS rec types etc etc http://www.linuxtopia.org/online_boo...ion/index.html