--On Friday, June 11, 2004 2:55 PM -0400 David Collantes <david@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
You do not need to run DNS to do what you are trying to do, but you need to list a valid (or more than one) DNS on your /etc/resolv.conf, which should contain:
search dnsdomainname.com nameserver XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX nameserver XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX
Of course, XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX are the IP of the DNS you are going to use. Done!
But it's nice to run your own caching server to reduce traffic and you eliminate dependence on your ISP's servers. To do this, install the caching-nameserver RPM package. It's a config file for BIND (named) that runs it only as a caching server. Then enable and start the named service.
Finally, in /etc/resolv.conf, set the nameserver to 127.0.0.1 so that it will consult your new caching nameserver.
Note that this is *only* beneficial when there are at least several, and hopefully lots, of machines in your local network. For just one or two machines it's an additional point of failure, an additional hop/step in name resolution, and just plain more work. I generally do not recommend it unless you are service *at least* five machines and you also *like* to do additional work (masochism, the learning experience, whatever).
Also, simply installing and configuring a caching nameserver without additional configuration means that every two-bit network out there is harassing the root servers directly which is incredibly rude. Nameservers are set up hierarchically *specifically* to spread out load and reduce duplicate requests, and your ISP's DNS servers likely serve up name resolution for 10,000 machines or more. You should always have your own caching-nameserver set up to forward queries to your ISP's servers *FIRST* and only query the root servers if that fails.
Not only is that the correct, courteous, proper way to do it, it's actually faster on average since in many cases your ISP's servers *will* have the name you want in their cache so you'll get a fast, one-hop response. Even if the ISP's servers are down, then your named process will still transparently and automatically query the root servers directly, so it's more fault-tolerant as well. Add this to your named.conf at the top in the "options" section where the directory is set:
forward first;
forwarders { 111.111.111.111; 222.222.222.222; };and you're done! Simple, very simple, and much better in every possible way.
Cheers,
-- Rodolfo J. Paiz rpaiz@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx http://www.simpaticus.com
