First, you install bind:

sudo apt-get install bind9

I decided to set up bind9 today on my Gutsy server. It wasn’t too painful after I finally found some posts from someone who knew what they were doing (2 tutorials I read contained invalid configurations…).

First, you install bind:

sudo apt-get install bind9

Then, you edit /etc/bind/named.conf:

acl homenet { 192.168.1.0/24; };

options {
  directory "/etc/bind/zones";
};

zone "." IN {
  type hint;
  file "named.root";
};

zone "who" IN {
  type master;
  file "who.db";
  allow-query { homenet; };
};

zone "1.168.192.in-addr.arpa" {
  type master;
  file "rev.1.168.192.in-addr.arpa";
};

This makes an ACL for my home network (192.168.1.1 – 192.168.1.254), sets the directory where my zone files live, defines a zone for the root DNS servers, defines a domain called .who, where all my machines will live, and only allows my home network IP space to query it, and also defines the reverse lookup zone.

Now, I simply had to make the zone files. Here’s what I came up with for zones/who.db:

$ORIGIN who.
$TTL 86400
@   IN  SOA   ns.who. rofl.who. (
    2006081401
    28800
    3600
    604800
    38400
)
                IN      NS  ns.who

                IN A       192.168.1.134
*               IN A       192.168.1.134
rofl            IN A       192.168.1.134
ns              IN A       192.168.1.134
davros          IN A       192.168.1.3

Basically, everything goes to my machine at 192.168.1.134 except things going to davros. It’s lame, but it’s a good template.

Here’s the Reverse lookup zone:

$ORIGIN .
$TTL 86400
1.168.192.in-addr.arpa IN SOA ns1.who. rofl.who. (
                        2006081401;
                        28800;
                        604800;
                        604800;
                        86400
)
     NS     ns1.who.
$ORIGIN 1.168.192.in-addr.arpa.
134    PTR    rofl.who.
3      PTR    davros.who.

Restart the bind service with sudo /etc/init.d/bind9 restart. Also, add it to your /etc/resolv.conf. Try it out like this:

hank@davros:~$ dig davros.who

; <<>> DiG 9.4.1-P1 <<>> davros.who
;; global options:  printcmd
;; Got answer:
;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 38320
;; flags: qr aa rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 1, AUTHORITY: 1, ADDITIONAL: 1

;; QUESTION SECTION:
;davros.who.                    IN      A

;; ANSWER SECTION:
davros.who.             86400   IN      A       192.168.1.3

;; AUTHORITY SECTION:
who.                    86400   IN      NS      ns.who.who.

;; ADDITIONAL SECTION:
ns.who.who.             86400   IN      A       192.168.1.134

;; Query time: 1 msec
;; SERVER: 192.168.1.134#53(192.168.1.134)
;; WHEN: Mon Mar 24 23:22:46 2008
;; MSG SIZE  rcvd: 81

I then added it to my DD-WRT settings on my Linksys WRT54Gv8 router under Setup -> Basic Setup:

My router now simply sends out its IP as the sole DNS server, but routes all the DNS requests to the right spots. Brilliant. Let me know if I did something stupid/wrong…

This rocks – now I have to try it on some For-Pay wireless…

Did another speed test today. So I guess I effectively have approximately a 16Mbit/1Mbit Down/Up line. Horray me!

So, the aptly named slurm is pretty awesome, making pretty graphs of my network traffic. I think I should use it more often.