How to Install and Configure a Private BIND DNS Server on Ubuntu 22.04

DNS (Domain Name System) plays a crucial role in mapping human-readable domain names into machine-friendly IP addresses, acting as a "phonebook" in the middle. Whether you're managing a private network or hosting web services, a reliable DNS solution ensures smooth communication and connectivity. The BIND (Berkeley Internet Name Domain) DNS server, one of the most widely used and trusted DNS software, offers a reliable infrastructure for creating and managing domain name resolution services. Its flexibility, scalability, and support for advanced configurations make it the go-to choice for administrators around the globe.

, which provides high-compute Virtual Machines at a very affordable cost on a scale that meets GDPR, SOC2, and ISO27001 requirements. It also offers an intuitive and user-friendly interface, making it easier for beginners to get started with Cloud deployments. However, feel free to use any cloud provider you choose and follow the same steps for the rest of the tutorial.

Step 1: Setting up a NodeShift Account

Visit straight to your dashboard.

3) Click on Start to start creating your very first compute node.

2) Next, select a geographical region from the Region dropdown where you want to launch your VM (e.g., United States).

Step 4: Choose VM Configuration and Image

1) After selecting your required configuration options, you'll see the available VMs in your region and as per (or very close to) your configuration. In our case, we'll choose a '4 vCPUs/4GB/80GB SSD' Compute node.

2) Next, you'll need to choose an image for your Virtual Machine. For the scope of this tutorial, we'll select Ubuntu, as we will deploy the DNS server on Ubuntu 22.04.

2) Next, you'll need to select an authentication method. Two methods are available: Password and SSH Key. We recommend using SSH keys, as they are a more secure option. To create one, head over to our official documentation.

That's it! You are now ready to deploy the node. Finalize the configuration summary; if it looks good, go ahead and click Create to deploy the node.

Step 8: Install BIND 9

1) Before moving to the installation of BIND 9, let's first update the package source list and upgrade the softwares

apt update -y && apt upgrade -y

Output:

3) Check if the BIND 9 service is running

systemctl status bind9

Step 9: Configure BIND DNS Server

We'll configure the BIND 9 DNS server with its two configuration files: named.conf.options, which is its main configuration file, and named.conf.local, which is used to define local DNS zones for a private domain.

1) Configure named.conf.options

a) Open the file with the Nano editor

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

The file that opens up looks like this:

b) Edit the content of the file

(replace <YOUR_REVERSE_IP_NAME> with your reverse zone IP name)

zone "nodeshift.local" IN { //define forward zone

        type master;

        file "/etc/bind/zones/forward.nodeshift";

};

zone "<YOUR_REVERSE_IP_NAME>.in-addr.arpa" IN { // define reverse zone

        type master;

        file "/etc/bind/zones/reverse.nodeshift.rev";

};

c) Check the syntax

named-checkconf /etc/bind/named.conf.local

If it executes successfully without any errors/outputs, the syntax is correct.

Step 10: Configure the Zone files

Now, let's configure the zone files we defined in the previous step.

First, create a directory for zone files to save our files.

mkdir /etc/bind/zones

1) Create forward zone file

First, we'll create a forward zone file /etc/bind/zones/forward.nodeshift , which will be responsible for helping the BIND DNS server to resolve names (e.g., bindserver.nodeshift.local) to IP addresses (e.g., 192.168.2.2).

a) Copy the default db.local zone file to /etc/bind/zones/forward.nodeshift

cp /etc/bind/db.local /etc/bind/zones/forward.nodeshift

b) Open forward.nodeshift file in Nano editor

sudo nano /etc/bind/zones/forward.nodeshift

c) Make the necessary edits

$TTL    604800

; SOA record for forward.nodeshift zone

@       IN      SOA     nodeshift.local. root.nodeshift.local. (

                              1         ; Serial (increment after each change)

                         604800         ; Refresh

                          86400         ; Retry

                        2419200         ; Expire

                         604800 )       ; Negative Cache TTL

; NS record pointing to the authoritative nameserver 

@       IN      NS      bindserver.nodeshift.local.

; A record for name server

bindserver      IN      A       192.168.2.2

; A record for clients

client1      IN      A       192.168.2.3

client2      IN      A       192.168.2.4

the edited file looks something like this:

2) Configure the reverse zone file

Next, we'll create and configure the reverse zone file /etc/bind/zones/reverse.nodeshift.rev. It is responsible for helping the DNS server to resolve IP addresses -> Names (for e.g., 192.168.2.2 -> bindserver.nodeshift.local)

a) Copy the default db.local file to /etc/bind/zones/reverse.nodeshift.rev

cp /etc/bind/db.local /etc/bind/zones/reverse.nodeshift.rev



b) Edit the content of the file, according to the below instructions

(replace <YOUR_SERVER_IP> with your server's IP address)

$TTL    604800

; SOA record for reverse.nodeshift zone

@       IN      SOA     nodeshift.local. root.nodeshift.local. (

                              1         ; Serial (increment after each change)

                         604800         ; Refresh

                          86400         ; Retry

                        2419200         ; Expire

                         604800 )       ; Negative Cache TTL

; NS record for reverse zone

@       IN      NS      bindserver.nodeshift.local.

; A record for name server

bindserver      IN      A       <YOUR_SERVER_IP>

; PTR record for name server

2   IN      PTR     bindserver.nodeshift.local

; PTR record for clients

3   IN      PTR     client1.nodeshift.local

4   IN      PTR     client2.nodeshift.local

the file should look similar to this:

3) Restart BIND 9 server

Once you're done with the above zone files configurations, restart the server for changes to take effect.

systemctl restart bind9

Step 11: Configure Clients for using BIND DNS

Now, when our private BIND DNS is configured, let's configure clients to use the server.

1) Check the interface

(replace <YOUR_SERVER_IP> with your server's IP address)

ip -brief addr show to <YOUR_SERVER_IP>/24

Output:

b) Open the file (shown in the above output)

Come back to the root directory and open the YAML file using Nano

sudo nano /etc/netplan/50-cloud-init.yaml

c) Make the necessary edits as per the below template

network:

    version: 2

    ethernets:

        enp0s5:

            addresses:

            - 192.168.2.3/24 # IP of client1

            - 192.168.2.4/24 # IP of client2

            match:

                macaddress: ca:06:71:90:38:f9

            mtu: 1500

            nameservers:

                addresses:

                - 192.168.2.2   # Private DNS server IP

                search: [ nodeshift.local ]  # Domain name of your private DNS

            set-name: enp0s5

this is how the edited file looks:

3) Test the configuration

Once the configuration is done, test it with the command below:

netplan try

It will ask you to accept the changes, press ENTER, and it's done!

nslookup client2

Output:

Conclusion

Setting up a private BIND DNS server is essential in managing domain name resolution for your internal network. In this tutorial, we’ve walked you through configuring BIND 9, forward and reverse zones, ensuring your private DNS is set up properly. By deploying this setup on NodeShift's cloud platform, we took advantage of a high-performance virtual machine, which simplified our deployment process and also provided a reliable foundation for deploying critical services like DNS servers.

For more information about NodeShift: