DNS and BIND

Larger Cover

DNS and BIND, 5th Edition

By Cricket Liu, Paul Albitz

Publisher: O'Reilly Media

Released: May 2006

Pages: 642

DNS and BIND tells you everything you need to work with one of the Internet's fundamental building blocks: the distributed host information database that's responsible for translating names into addresses, routing mail to its proper destination, and even listing phone numbers with the new ENUM standard. This book brings you up-to-date with the latest changes in this crucial service.

The fifth edition covers BIND 9.3.2, the most recent release of the BIND 9 series, as well as BIND 8.4.7. BIND 9.3.2 contains further improvements in security and IPv6 support, and important new features such as internationalized domain names, ENUM (electronic numbering), and SPF (the Sender Policy Framework).

Whether you're an administrator involved with DNS on a daily basis or a user who wants to be more informed about the Internet and how it works, you'll find that this book is essential reading.

Topics include:

What DNS does, how it works, and when you need to use it
How to find your own place in the Internet's namespace
Setting up name servers
Using MX records to route mail
Configuring hosts to use DNS name servers
Subdividing domains (parenting)
Securing your name server: restricting who can query your server, preventing unauthorized zone transfers, avoiding bogus servers, etc.
The DNS Security Extensions (DNSSEC) and Transaction Signatures (TSIG)
Mapping one name to several servers for load sharing
Dynamic updates, asynchronous notification of change to a zone, and incremental zone transfers
Troubleshooting: using nslookup and dig, reading debugging output, common problems
DNS programming using the resolver library and Perl's Net::DNS module

Chapter 1 Background
1. A (Very) Brief History of the Internet
2. On the Internet and Internets
3. The Domain Name System, in a Nutshell
4. The History of BIND
5. Must I Use DNS?
Chapter 2 How Does DNS Work?
1. The Domain Namespace
2. The Internet Domain Namespace
3. Delegation
4. Nameservers and Zones
5. Resolvers
6. Resolution
7. Caching
Chapter 3 Where Do I Start?
1. Getting BIND
2. Choosing a Domain Name
Chapter 4 Setting Up BIND
1. Our Zone
2. Setting Up Zone Data
3. Setting Up a BIND Configuration File
4. Abbreviations
5. Hostname Checking
6. Tools
7. Running a Primary Nameserver
8. Running a Slave Nameserver
9. Adding More Zones
10. What's Next?
Chapter 5 DNS and Electronic Mail
1. MX Records
2. Movie.edu's Mail Server
3. What's a Mail Exchanger, Again?
4. The MX Algorithm
5. DNS and Email Authentication
Chapter 6 Configuring Hosts
1. The Resolver
2. Resolver Configuration
3. Sample Resolver Configurations
4. Minimizing Pain and Suffering
5. Additional Configuration Files
6. The Windows XP Resolver
Chapter 7 Maintaining BIND
1. Controlling the Nameserver
2. Updating Zone Datafiles
3. Organizing Your Files
4. Changing System File Locations
5. Logging
6. Keeping Everything Running Smoothly
Chapter 8 Growing Your Domain
1. How Many Nameservers?
2. Adding More Nameservers
3. Registering Nameservers
4. Changing TTLs
5. Planning for Disasters
6. Coping with Disaster
Chapter 9 Parenting
1. When to Become a Parent
2. How Many Children?
3. What to Name Your Children
4. How to Become a Parent: Creating Subdomains
5. Subdomains of in-addr.arpa Domains
6. Good Parenting
7. Managing the Transition to Subdomains
8. The Life of a Parent
Chapter 10 Advanced Features
1. Address Match Lists and ACLs
2. DNS Dynamic Update
3. DNS NOTIFY (Zone Change Notification)
4. Incremental Zone Transfer (IXFR)
5. Forwarding
6. Views
7. Round-Robin Load Distribution
8. Nameserver Address Sorting
9. Preferring Nameservers on Certain Networks
10. A Nonrecursive Nameserver
11. Avoiding a Bogus Nameserver
12. System Tuning
13. Compatibility
14. The ABCs of IPv6 Addressing
15. Addresses and Ports
Chapter 11 Security
1. TSIG
2. Securing Your Nameserver
3. DNS and Internet Firewalls
4. The DNS Security Extensions
Chapter 12 nslookup and dig
1. Is nslookup a Good Tool?
2. Interactive Versus Noninteractive
3. Option Settings
4. Avoiding the Search List
5. Common Tasks
6. Less Common Tasks
7. Troubleshooting nslookup Problems
8. Best of the Net
9. Using dig
Chapter 13 Reading BIND Debugging Output
1. Debugging Levels
2. Turning On Debugging
3. Reading Debugging Output
4. The Resolver Search Algorithm and Negative Caching (BIND 8)
5. The Resolver Search Algorithm and Negative Caching (BIND 9)
6. Tools
Chapter 14 Troubleshooting DNS and BIND
1. Is NIS Really Your Problem?
2. Troubleshooting Tools and Techniques
3. Potential Problem List
4. Transition Problems
5. Interoperability and Version Problems
6. TSIG Errors
7. Problem Symptoms
Chapter 15 Programming with the Resolver and Nameserver Library Routines
1. Shell Script Programming with nslookup
2. C Programming with the Resolver Library Routines
3. Perl Programming with Net::DNS
Chapter 16 Architecture
1. External, Authoritative DNS Infrastructure
2. Forwarder Infrastructure
3. Internal DNS Infrastructure
4. Operations
5. Keeping Up with DNS and BIND
Chapter 17 Miscellaneous
1. Using CNAME Records
2. Wildcards
3. A Limitation of MX Records
4. Dial-up Connections
5. Network Names and Numbers
6. Additional Resource Records
7. ENUM
8. Internationalized Domain Names
9. DNS and WINS
10. DNS, Windows, and Active Directory

Appendix DNS Message Format and Resource Records
1. Master File Format
2. DNS Messages
3. Resource Record Data
Appendix BIND Compatibility Matrix
Appendix Compiling and Installing BIND on Linux
1. Instructions for BIND 8
2. Instructions for BIND 9
Appendix Top-Level Domains
Appendix BIND Nameserver and Resolver Configuration
1. BIND Nameserver Boot File Directives and Configuration File Statements
2. BIND 8 Configuration File Statements
3. BIND 9 Configuration File Statements
4. BIND Resolver Statements
5. BIND 9 Options Statement
Colophon

Title:

DNS and BIND, 5th Edition

By:

Cricket Liu, Paul Albitz

Publisher:

O'Reilly Media

Formats:

Print
Ebook
Safari Books Online

Print:

May 2006

Ebook:

February 2009

Pages:

642

Print ISBN:

978-0-596-10057-5

| ISBN 10:

0-596-10057-4

Ebook ISBN:

978-0-596-10572-3

| ISBN 10:

0-596-10572-X

Cricket Liu

Cricket Liu graduated from the University of California, Berkeley, that great bastion of free speech, unencumbered Unix, and cheap pizza. He joined Hewlett-Packard after graduation and worked for HP for nine years.

Cricket began managing the hp.com zone after the Loma Prieta earthquake forcibly transferred the zone's management from HP Labs to HP's Corporate Offices (by cracking a sprinkler main and flooding a Labs computer room). Cricket was hostmaster@hp.com for over three years, and then joined HP's Professional Services Organization to co-found HP's Internet Consulting Program.

Cricket left HP in 1997 to form Acme Byte & Wire, a DNS consulting and training company, with his friend Matt Larson. Network Solutions acquired Acme in June 2000, and later the same day merged with VeriSign. Cricket worked for a year as Director of DNS Product Management for VeriSign Global Registry Services.

Cricket joined Infoblox, a company that develops DNS and DHCP appliances, in March, 2003. He is currently their Vice President of Architecture.

Cricket, his wife, Paige, their son, Walt, and daughter, Greta, live in California with their two Siberian Huskies, Annie and Dakota.

View Cricket Liu's full profile page.
Paul Albitz

Paul Albitz is a software engineer at Hewlett-Packard. Paul earned a Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Wisconsin, LaCrosse, and a Master of Science degree from Purdue University.

Paul worked on BIND for the HP-UX 7.0 and 8.0 releases. During this time he developed the tools used to run the hp.com domain. Since then Paul has worked on various HP products during his 19 year career: HP JetDirect software, HP OfficeJet fax firmware, HPPhoto web site, and HP Photosmart Premier software.

Paul and his wife Katherine live in San Diego California with their two cats, Gracie and Tiffany.

View Paul Albitz's full profile page.

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oreillyDNS and BIND, 5th Edition

5.0

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5/21/2009

(4 of 4 customers found this review helpful)

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Excellent

By jdruin

from Undisclosed

Comments about oreilly DNS and BIND, 5th Edition:

This book was the best I have seen on practical DNS. There is no question that users are geared towards using BIND as their DNS server (the exmaples themselves are taken directly from BIND script and configuration files); however, the book is written in such a way as to teach how DNS works very effectively. Although other DNS servers are not covered, the thoery behind DNS and the DNS protocol is reviewed carefully and the reader should find this useful to apply to any DNS server setup. Examples are clear and provided to reinforce discussions on theory. The book essentially teaches DNS by walking the reader through the steps needed to set up a fully functional BIND server.

10/11/2006

(7 of 9 customers found this review helpful)

5.0

Help for System Administrators

By mickey knight

from Undisclosed

Comments about oreilly DNS and BIND, 5th Edition:

While taking the Red Hat course( RHA-230 )that covers many aspects of System administration I began my study of Bind and the nmaed service.

I decided I would set up a couple of DNS servers, each with a corresponding web and ftp sites. I used Red Hat Linux AS on one and the Centos clone ES4 on the other.

The web sites were easy enough to get going, but in order to get DNS working took more effort. After I read the manuals that ship with the Bind software, I spent many hours searching the web on DNS, but was unable to get my DNS servers working properly.

I googled for a good book on the subject and of course, O'Reilly was at the top of the list.

After looking at the various options here, I bought DNS and Bind , 5th edition from Borders Books.

This book is a great resource that covers Bind in a way that I could understand.It has very descriptive examples that cleared up many misconceptions I had from the internet and my studies.

The book gives a good introduction to the subject of DNS. It explains the use and workings of the many tools used by Sysops to verify the operation of the service.

It gives real world examples on how to use dig, nslookup and host in ways never covered by the man pages.

After reading just 100 pages I was able to get both servers up and pointing to the correct web sites.

If you need working DNS servers and do not yet possess the expertise to build them, buy this book.

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Chapter 1 Background

A (Very) Brief History of the Internet

On the Internet and Internets

The Domain Name System, in a Nutshell

The History of BIND

Must I Use DNS?

Chapter 2 How Does DNS Work?

The Domain Namespace

The Internet Domain Namespace

Delegation

Nameservers and Zones

Resolvers

Resolution

Caching

Chapter 3 Where Do I Start?

Getting BIND

Choosing a Domain Name

Chapter 4 Setting Up BIND

Our Zone

Setting Up Zone Data

Setting Up a BIND Configuration File

Abbreviations

Hostname Checking

Tools

Running a Primary Nameserver

Running a Slave Nameserver

Adding More Zones

What's Next?

Chapter 5 DNS and Electronic Mail

MX Records

Movie.edu's Mail Server

What's a Mail Exchanger, Again?

The MX Algorithm

DNS and Email Authentication

Chapter 6 Configuring Hosts

The Resolver

Resolver Configuration

Sample Resolver Configurations

Minimizing Pain and Suffering

Additional Configuration Files

The Windows XP Resolver

Chapter 7 Maintaining BIND

Controlling the Nameserver

Updating Zone Datafiles

Organizing Your Files

Changing System File Locations

Logging

Keeping Everything Running Smoothly

Chapter 8 Growing Your Domain

How Many Nameservers?

Adding More Nameservers

Registering Nameservers

Changing TTLs

Planning for Disasters

Coping with Disaster

Chapter 9 Parenting

When to Become a Parent

How Many Children?

What to Name Your Children

How to Become a Parent: Creating Subdomains

Subdomains of in-addr.arpa Domains

Good Parenting

Managing the Transition to Subdomains

The Life of a Parent

Chapter 10 Advanced Features

Address Match Lists and ACLs

DNS Dynamic Update

DNS NOTIFY (Zone Change Notification)

Incremental Zone Transfer (IXFR)

Forwarding

Views

Round-Robin Load Distribution

Nameserver Address Sorting

Preferring Nameservers on Certain Networks

A Nonrecursive Nameserver

Avoiding a Bogus Nameserver

System Tuning

Compatibility

The ABCs of IPv6 Addressing

Addresses and Ports