How To Install BIND9 Master and Slave DNS Server on Ubuntu

In this tutorial, we will show you how to install BIND9 Master and Slave DNS Server on Ubuntu. BIND is a widely used DNS Server. Ideally, a DNS server consists of 2 machines that work together simultaneously, one acts as a master and the other one act as a slave. If your domain registrar doesn’t provide you with a free DNS server, or if you want to create a custom DNS record, then you might need to host your own DNS server.

In this tutorial, we will cover how to configure BIND9 Master and Slave DNS server. Both servers will use Ubuntu OS. We will start configuring the master then the slave.

Prerequisites

• A server running one of the following operating systems: Ubuntu and any other Debian-based distribution like Linux Mint.
• It’s recommended that you use a fresh OS install to prevent any potential issues.
• SSH access to the server (or just open Terminal if you’re on a desktop).
• A non-root sudo useror access to the root user. We recommend acting as a non-root sudo user, however, as you can harm your system if you’re not careful when acting as the root.

Install BIND9 Master and Slave DNS Server on Ubuntu

Here are the server’s example data:

Server1 (master) IP address: 108.100.100.1
Server2 (slave) IP address: 108.100.100.2
Domain: idroot.us
This domain will be hosted on this server: 172.217.194.94

ON MASTER

Step1. Update ubuntu repository and install Bind using apt-get.

apt-get update
apt-get install bind9

Step2. Configure bind options

*)do this if you haven't installed nano text editor: 
apt-get install nano

nano /etc/bind/named.conf.options

options {
	directory "/var/cache/bind";
	additional-from-auth no;
	additional-from-cache no;
	version "Bind Server";

	// If there is a firewall between you and nameservers you want
	// to talk to, you may need to fix the firewall to allow multiple
	// ports to talk.  See http://www.kb.cert.org/vuls/id/800113

	// If your ISP provided one or more IP addresses for stable 
	// nameservers, you probably want to use them as forwarders.  
	// Uncomment the following block, and insert the addresses replacing 
	// the all-0's placeholder.

	 forwarders {
	 	8.8.8.8;
		8.8.4.4;
	 };

	//========================================================================
	// If BIND logs error messages about the root key being expired,
	// you will need to update your keys.  See https://www.isc.org/bind-keys
	//========================================================================
	dnssec-validation auto;
	allow-recursion { 127.0.0.1; };
	auth-nxdomain no;    # conform to RFC1035
	listen-on-v6 { any; };
};

Step 3. Store the domain name and zone file setting

nano /etc/bind/named.conf.local

//place these lines at the bottom of file

zone "idroot.us" {
        type master;
        file "/etc/bind/zones/idroot.us.db";
        allow-transfer { 108.200.200.2; };
        also-notify { 108.200.200.200.2; };
};

Step4. Because in the above config we put the zone file in “/etc/bind/zones/idroot.us.db”, then we need to create the folder and file

mkdir /etc/bind/zones
nano /etc/bind/zones/idroot.us.db

$TTL    86400
$ORIGIN idroot.us.
@       IN      SOA     ns1.idroot.us. root.idroot.us. (
                              1         ; Serial
                          86400         ; Refresh
                           7200         ; Retry
                        2419200         ; Expire
                         604800 )       ; Negative Cache TTL
;
@       IN      NS      ns1.idroot.us.
@       IN      NS      ns2.idroot.us.
ns1      IN      A       108.100.100.1
ns2      IN      A       108.100.100.2

;also list other computers
@       IN      A       172.217.194.94 
www     IN      A       172.217.194.94

Step 5. (last step on master) Restart bind9 DNS service

service bind9 restart

ON SLAVE

Repeat steps 1-2 similar to the master.

Step 3. Configure slave bind options

nano /etc/bind/named.conf.options

zone "idroot.us" {
	type slave;
	file "/var/cache/bind/idroot.us.db";
	masters {108.100.100.1;};
};

notice the difference in this config file from the master.

Step 4. Restart bind9 service.

service bind9 restart

What to do next?

This DNS server will not work until you change your domain’s nameserver. It can be done from your domain’s registrar’s website. In this scenario, we change the nameserver to:

ns1.idroot.us
ns2.idroot.us

Testing BIND

This test could be done either on the DNS server itself or from another server, or from your own PC. In this case, we will do the test from another server running Ubuntu OS.

Step 1.Install dnsutils

sudo apt-get install dnsutils

Step 2. Do the dig DNS test

dig idroot.us

Step 3. Do the nslookup dns test

nslookup idroot.us

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