Setup DNS Server on Ubuntu Server

Setup DNS Server on Ubuntu Server

Enter administrative/root mode:

sudo su

Install DNS Server (BIND):

apt-get install bind9

Configure the main BIND files:

nano /etc/bind/named.conf.local

This is where we will insert our zones. A zone is a domain name that is referenced in the DNS Server. Insert this into the named.conf.local file:

# This is the zone definition. replace example.com with your domain name
zone "example.com" {
        type master;
        file "/etc/bind/zones/example.com.db";
        };

# This is the zone definition for reverse DNS. replace 0.168.192 with your network address in reverse notation - e.g my network address is 192.168.0
zone "0.168.192.in-addr.arpa" {
     type master;
     file "/etc/bind/zones/rev.0.168.192.in-addr.arpa";
};

Now let's edit the options file:

nano /etc/bind/named.conf.options

We need to modify the forwarder. This is the DNS Server to which your own DNS will forward the requests it cannot process:

forwarders {
# Replace the address below with the address of your provider's DNS server
123.123.123.123;
};

Now we add the zone definition files (replace example.com with your domain name):

mkdir /etc/bind/zones
cd zones
nano example.com.db

The zone definition file is where we put all the addresses / machine names that our DNS server will use. You can take the following example:

// replace example.com with your domain name. do not forget the . after the domain name!
// Also, replace ns1 with the name of your DNS server
example.com.      IN      SOA     ns1.example.com. admin.example.com. (
// Do not modify the following lines!
                                                        2006081401
                                                        28800
                                                        3600
                                                        604800
                                                        38400
)

// Replace the following line as necessary:
// ns1 = DNS Server name
// mta = mail server name
// example.com = domain name
example.com.      IN      NS              ns1.example.com.
example.com.      IN      MX     10       mta.example.com.

// Replace the IP address with the right IP addresses.
www              IN      A       192.168.0.2
mta              IN      A       192.168.0.3
ns1              IN      A       192.168.0.1