Setting up DNS without domain

Setting up DNS without domain

[Peter Edstrom]

Hello!

Since the DNS's of my ISP is constantly going down, I want to set up my
own using BIND (except if you have any other recommendations). The
problem is that all howtos I've found is based around having a domain,
which I don't. Is this a prerequisite of running a DNS, or can
you use a bogus domain (like youareamunch.kinlloyd which probably isn't 
already in use) or perhaps just your IP?

Another question: Do you recommend chrooting BIND?

Thanks in advance!
/Peter
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Re: Setting up DNS without domain

[Ray Olszewski]

At 12:35 AM 8/13/2003 +0200, Peter Edstrom wrote:
>Hello!
>
>Since the DNS's of my ISP is constantly going down, I want to set up my
>own using BIND (except if you have any other recommendations). The
>problem is that all howtos I've found is based around having a domain,
>which I don't. Is this a prerequisite of running a DNS, or can
>you use a bogus domain (like youareamunch.kinlloyd which probably isn't
>already in use) or perhaps just your IP?

No, you can run BIND (named) without your own domain, just to resolve 
offsite FQNs that your local hosts need to resolve. Just run it and provide 
only the file that identifies root server (on my Debian system, 
/etc/bind/db.root). You do this by configuring named.conf to provide only 
that db file (as a "hint"), probably something like this:

         // prime the server with knowledge of the root servers
         zone "." {
                         type hint;
                         file "/etc/bind/db.root";
         };

If you have a significant number of hosts on your LAN, you might want to 
make this instance of BIND locally (on-LAN only) authoritative for a dummy 
domain that the hosts can use to find each other. (That's what I do here, 
for example.) In that case, the stuff you've seen about using BIND with 
real (registered) domains should guide you.

>Another question: Do you recommend chrooting BIND?

I offer no recommendation, but I do not do so myself.



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Re: Setting up DNS without domain

[Peter Edstrom]

On Tue, Aug 12, 2003 at 03:59:51PM -0700, Ray Olszewski wrote:
 
> No, you can run BIND (named) without your own domain, just to resolve 
> offsite FQNs that your local hosts need to resolve. Just run it and provide 
> only the file that identifies root server (on my Debian system, 
> /etc/bind/db.root). You do this by configuring named.conf to provide only 
> that db file (as a "hint"), probably something like this:
> 
>         // prime the server with knowledge of the root servers
>         zone "." {
>                         type hint;
>                         file "/etc/bind/db.root";
>         };
> 
> If you have a significant number of hosts on your LAN, you might want to 
> make this instance of BIND locally (on-LAN only) authoritative for a dummy 
> domain that the hosts can use to find each other. (That's what I do here, 
> for example.) In that case, the stuff you've seen about using BIND with 
> real (registered) domains should guide you.
> 
> >Another question: Do you recommend chrooting BIND?
> 
> I offer no recommendation, but I do not do so myself.

Thanks for the quick reply, Ray! I will try that ASAP.

/Peter
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Re: Setting up DNS without domain

[Peter Edstrom]

On Tue, Aug 12, 2003 at 05:45:48PM -0500, Jim Reimer wrote:

> Don't let me discourage you from setting up your own, but if the only
> reason is that your ISP has problems, it's not necessary.
> 
> -jdr-

Could you please explain yourself?
The reason why I've decided to set up my own DNS instead of using 
someone else's is to avoid any problems in the future. The problem,
however, could be performance since I'll be running it on my
workstation. Do you think this is a bad move?

/Peter

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Re: Setting up DNS without domain

[James Turnbull]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Peter Edstrom" <peter.p3@home.se>
To: <linux-newbie@vger.kernel.org>
Sent: Wednesday, August 13, 2003 8:35 AM
Subject: Setting up DNS without domain


> Another question: Do you recommend chrooting BIND?

Yes.  It's a good, basic security precaution for any Bind install. 

See here :- http://en.tldp.org/HOWTO/Chroot-BIND-HOWTO.html for details

Regards

James Turnbull
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Re: Setting up DNS without domain

[Jim Reimer]

Peter Edstrom wrote:

> Could you please explain yourself?
> The reason why I've decided to set up my own DNS instead of using 
> someone else's is to avoid any problems in the future. The problem,
> however, could be performance since I'll be running it on my
> workstation. Do you think this is a bad move?

I forgot to include the list in my original reply... I've added
it back in.

I'm using DirecWay (satellite) for internet connectivity.  They provide
a decent connection to the net, but everything else (DNS, email, etc.)
is really bad.  Had lots of trouble, sometimes for extended periods,
with DNS lookup errors when I was using their DNS, so I just changed
to different servers.

What I'm using for DNS now are the servers listed as primary at The
University of Oklahoma, North Texas State University, and The
University of Wyoming, as my primary, secondary, and tertiary name
servers.  Could just as easily have used Microsoft and CNN.  Just
pick somebody big and do a whois lookup on them, jot down the IP
address of their primary name server, and use it in place of
the IP address for your ISP's DNS.

Even if you set up your own server, it's going to have to communicate
with somebody else's server(s) to resolve other than local names.  Since
I only have one local name to bother with, I didn't think it was worth
the trouble.

(Somebody do a sanity check on what I'm saying here.)

-jdr-








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Re: Setting up DNS without domain

[Peter Edstrom]

Thanks for the help! 
Now I'm almost sure how to do it. I will do as Jim Reimer said and go
for a DNS of something big that's located in Sweden. However, Steven's
solution of putting the common URLs in /etc/hosts would work for me I
guess, since there's usually just a handful of domains I visit.

/Peter
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