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BIND and DNS tutorials

DNS/BIND resource record: using $GENERATE to make many records

Contributed by qmchenry on January 4, 2004 under BIND and DNS

A cool feature in versions of BIND since 8.2 and 9.1 is the $GENERATE directive which can create hundreds or thousands of resource records with a single line in zone file. A common use for $GENERATE is assigning PTR records for a DHCP address range.

DNS/BIND resource record: CNAME, canonical names, host aliases

Contributed by qmchenry on under BIND and DNS

A single host may have multiple personalities: web server (www), mail server (mail, mx), dns server (ns), ftp server (ftp). Rather than assign each of these names an address (A) record pointing to the same IP address, all of which would need to be changed if the IP address changed, one name can be associated with an address record and the remaining names can be aliases for that name. The CNAME record simplifies DNS management, and who doesn’t want that?

DNS/BIND: set TTL for individual resource records

Contributed by qmchenry on under BIND and DNS

BIND resource records allow an explict TTL value that will override the zone file’s TTL for that specific resource record. One use for this is to prevent non-authoritative servers from caching these records, perhaps in prelude to changing a server’s IP address.

DNS/BIND resource record: routing mail with MX records

Contributed by qmchenry on under BIND and DNS

Proper DNS configuration with MX records is a requirement for routing email for a domain.

DNS/BIND troubleshooting: request a domain\’s SOA using dig

Contributed by qmchenry on under BIND and DNS

DNS/BIND resource record: PTR reverse lookup record

Contributed by qmchenry on under BIND and DNS

The PTR (pointer) record maps an IP address to a hostname and fully qualified domain name. Many applications use reverse lookups to identify the domain from which a TCP/IP connection is formed. Best practice for DNS is to create a PTR record for every A record.

DNS/BIND resource record: Address (A) record

Contributed by qmchenry on under BIND and DNS

The address record (A record) maps a hostname and fully qualified domain name with an IP address.

DNS/BIND: Create a basic zone file

Contributed by qmchenry on under BIND and DNS

A zone file holds the DNS resource records for all of the domain names associated with the zone. Zone files store all of the data served by a DNS server. This recipe describes the basic zone file format without any resource records suitable for any type of zone file.