In this tutorial, we will show you how to install DNS Server on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS. For those of you who didn’t know, DNS servers very important tool for your network because many IP addresses can’t remember so can remember DNS names. BIND or BIND 9 is an open-source implementation of DNS, available for almost all Linux distributions. BIND stands for Berkeley Internet Name Domain and it allows us to publish DNS information on the internet as well as allows us to resolve DNS queries for the users. BIND is by far the most used DNS software on the Internet.
This article assumes you have at least basic knowledge of Linux, know how to use the shell, and most importantly, you host your site on your own VPS. The installation is quite simple and assumes you are running in the root account, if not you may need to add ‘sudo‘ to the commands to get root privileges. I will show you the step-by-step installation of the DNS Server (Bind9) on Ubuntu 20.04 (Focal Fossa). You can follow the same instructions for Ubuntu 18.04, 16.04, and any other Debian-based distribution like Linux Mint.
Prerequisites
- A server running one of the following operating systems: Ubuntu 20.04, 18.04, 16.04, 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 theroot user. We recommend acting as anon-root sudo user, however, as you can harm your system if you’re not careful when acting as the root.
Install DNS Server on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS Focal Fossa
Step 1. First, make sure that all your system packages are up-to-date by running the following apt commands in the terminal.
sudo apt update sudo apt upgrade
Step 2. Installing DNS Server on Ubuntu 20.04.
Now we install BIND using the following command below:
sudo apt install bind9 bind9utils bind9-doc
By default, BIND automatically starts after installation. You check its status with:
sudo systemctl status named
Once the installation process is complete, you can check if BIND9 is working:
nslookup google.com 127.0.0.1
Output:
Server: 127.0.0.1 Address: 127.0.0.1#53 Non-authoritative answer: Name: google.com Address: 142.250.4.94 ...
Step 3. Configuration BIND9.
The main configuration file is named.conf.options, let’s open it:
sudo nano /etc/bind/named.conf.options
The “listen-on” directive allows you to specify the networks that the DNS server will serve:
listen-on {
10.10.10.0/24;
10.1.0.0/16;
...
};
BIND9 only allows local queries by default. Add the necessary IP addresses to the “allow-query” directive or “any;” to allow all requests:
allow-query { any; };
Forwarders contain the IP addresses of DNS servers to which the request is redirected if our server does not contain the required data:
forwarders {
8.8.8.8;
8.8.4.4;
};
Finally, save and close the file. Check the configuration:
sudo named-checkconf sudo systemctl restart bind9
Step 4. Configure Firewall.
In case the OS firewall is running on your bind server then execute the below command to allow the bind port:
sudo ufw allow Bind9
Step 5. Testing BIND.
To check if the DNS server is working properly, enter the following command:
nslookup google.com
Output:
Server: 103.86.96.100 Address: 103.86.96.100#53 Non-authoritative answer: Name: google.com Address: 172.217.194.101 Name: google.com Address: 172.217.194.100 Name: google.com Address: 172.217.194.138 Name: google.com Address: 172.217.194.102 Name: google.com Address: 172.217.194.113 Name: google.com Address: 172.217.194.139
Congratulations! You have successfully installed DNS Server. Thanks for using this tutorial for installing the DNS Server (Bind9) on your Ubuntu 20.04 LTS Focal Fossa system. For additional help or useful information, we recommend you check the official Ubuntu website.
