Bind9 install - Some not so obvious tips

[PeterTaps]

Folks,

For the past three days, I was running into a problem installing bind on Fedora 11. It turns out it was related to the Linksys router that I was using. However, I did get to learn a few things about Bind9 that are not that obvious. Thought I will pass this along for others.

1. Get bind-chroot and NOT bind
It seems the newer versions of Linux encourage bind-chroot. I was doing "yum install bind" until I came across a post that mentiond "yum install bind-chroot."

2. Specify ROOTDIR in named
Bind-Chroot install will create the directory structure /var/named/chroot. However, you still need to edit /etc/init.d/named and add the following:

ROOTDIR="/var/named/chroot/"

Strangely, this is not mentioned anywhere on the Internet.

3. Don't modify /etc/resolv.conf
All the docs say that you must modify /etc/resolv.conf and add the following:

nameserver 127.0.0.1

The problem is, under Fedora, NetworkManager recreates this file each time the box is rebooted. If you really want to preserve your info in between the boots,
either disable NetworkManager or modify /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth0 and add:

DNS1=127.0.0.1
DNS2=xx.xx.xx.xx

Hope these tips help when you are building your DNS server.

Regards,
Peter

[Lazydog]

2. Specify ROOTDIR in named
Bind-Chroot install will create the directory structure /var/named/chroot. However, you still need to edit /etc/init.d/named and add the following:

ROOTDIR="/var/named/chroot/"

Strangely, this is not mentioned anywhere on the Internet.

You should not have to do this. If you have to then there is either a setup problem on your system or the package you DL is not setup correctly.

I have been running chroot bind for years now and never had to make any changes to named startup script.