How to Setup a DNS Server in Ubuntu

Assumptions

Enough with the DNS background. Let’s now start configuring our own DNS server. Let’s assume that we have the following: we want to create a private internal domain name called mydomain.com, our private internal network is 192.168.0.x and our router and gateway is set at 192.168.0.1. Let’s assume all devices are going to be configured with static IP addresses. Normally, most computer systems nowadays are configured to automatically obtain IP addresses from the DHCP server/router. In this example, we will use static IP addresses to show how DNS works. Finally, we have 3 computers connected to our network:

• Ubuntu Server, the DNS server - 192.168.0.9
• Ubuntu Desktop - 192.168.0.10
• PC - 192.168.0.11

Instructions

1. To install the DNS server, we need to install Bind 9.

sudo apt-get install bind9

2. Let’s configure Bind. We need to touch 5 files.

We will edit 3 files.

• /etc/bind/named.conf.local
• /etc/bind/named.conf.options
• /etc/resolv.conf

We will create 2 files.

• /etc/bind/zones/mydomain.com.db
• /etc/bind/zones/rev.0.168.192.in-addr.arpa

A. First step. Lets add our domain zone - mydomain.com.

sudo vi /etc/bind/named.conf.local

# Our domain zone
zone "mydomain.com" {
 type master;
 file "/etc/bind/zones/mydomain.com.db";
};

# For reverse DNS 
zone "0.168.192.in-addr.arpa" {
 type master;
 file "/etc/bind/zones/rev.0.168.192.in-addr.arpa";
};

Save file. Exit.

We just created a new domain. Please note: later we will create two files named mydomain.com.db and rev.0.168.192.in-addr.arpa files. Also, notice the reverse IP address sequence in the reverse DNS section.

B. Let’s add the DNS servers from your ISP. In my case, I’m using Comcast DNS servers. You can place the primary and secondary DNS servers here separated by semicolons.

sudo vi /etc/bind/named.conf.options

forwarders {
 68.87.76.178;
};

Save file. Exit.

C. Now, let’s modify the resolv.conf file found in /etc and place the IP address of our DNS server which is set to 192.168.0.9.

$ sudo vi /etc/resolv.conf

search mydomain.com.
nameserver 192.168.0.9

D. Now, let’s define the zones.

sudo mkdir /etc/bind/zones
sudo vi /etc/bind/zones/mydomain.com.db

$TTL 3D
@ IN SOA ns.mydomain.com. admin.mydomain.com. (
 2007062001
 28800
 3600
 604800
 38400
);
mydomain.com.  IN      NS         ns.mydomain.com.
ubuntudesktop  IN      A          192.168.0.10
www            IN      CNAME      ubuntudesktop
pc             IN      A          192.168.0.11
gw             IN      A          192.168.0.1
                     TXT        "Network Gateway"

The TTL or time to live is set for 3 days
The ns.mydomain.com nameserver is defined
ubuntudesktop, pc and gateway are entered as an A record
An alias of www is assigned to ubuntudesktop using CNAME

E. Let’s create a “rev.0.168.192.in-addr.arpa” file for reverse lookup.

sudo vi /etc/bind/zones/rev.0.168.192.in-addr.arpa

$TTL 3D
@       IN      SOA     ns.mydomain.com. admin.mydomain.com. (
              2007062001
              28800
              604800
              604800
              86400
)
      IN      NS      ns.mydomain.com.
1       IN      PTR     gw.mydomain.com.
10      IN      PTR     ubuntudesktop.mydomain.com.
11      IN      PTR     pc.mydomain.com.

3. Let’s restart Bind to activate our latest changes.

sudo /etc/init.d/bind9 restart

4. Finally, let’s test our new domain and DNS entries.

Dig

$ dig mydomain.com

Nslookup

nslookup gw

5. That’s it.

Source