Date: Tue, 20 May 97 02:01:51 -0800 From: "That Doug Guy" <tiller@connectnet.com> To: "Richard Toren" <rpt@sso.wdl.lmco.com> Cc: "FreeBSD Questions" <FreeBSD-Questions@freebsd.org> Subject: Re: caching DNS, question Message-ID: <199705200902.CAA01857@smtp.connectnet.com>
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On Sun, 18 May 1997 16:17:56 -0400 (EDT), Richard Toren wrote: >Folks, > What I want to do is install a local DNS (just upgraded from 2.1.5 to >2.2.1) that responds to local queries; bounces out to the ISP's DNS when >needed; but retains a cache of recently used resolutions (say for 30 >minutes or so). The first question I have is why do you want the DNS locally? Is it to get experience with setting up a name server? If so, you got some good answers on that already. I'd also suggest that you check out http://www.isc.org/ for the latest version of BIND since the one that comes with FreeBSD 2.x is rather outdated. The new 8.1-Release of BIND compiles "right out of the box" on a FreeBSD system so you should have no problems with it. If on the other hand you just want an efficient resolver setup, I'd say that you are better off depending on your ISP's name server. It can handle the actual queries just as fast as you could locally (unless something is dreadfully wrong at your ISP), and you can avoid having to sacrifice your RAM to named (about 16M here after 4-5 days uptime, although this is a heavy use system). If you have a list of sites that you use frequently, you can avoid having to look them up at all by specifying them in /etc/hosts and telling your system to try that file first in /etc/host.conf. Reading the man pages for each of those files is highly recommended. :) > I have O'Reilly "DNS & Bind". So if the answer is in there, please >provide a pointer to the section or capability. Without understanding >the difference or interactions between named, bind, resolver, and NIS >I may have read right through it an not realized it... (not running NIS), >intermitent ISP connection with dynamic address.... I'd say that you should start at the beginning, and read through if you're really interested. The O'Reilly book is very very good, and for my money is the industry standard. The short answers to your questions: named: The actual name server daemon that handles lookups for your site, and if you have an actual domain, handles queries about your site. bind: Berkeley Internet Name Domain, the name of the whole software package, including named, resolver libraries, and tools like nslookup resolver: This is a bit more nebulous, but in general "the resolver" is the routine or set of routines that your programs query for answers about domains and IP addresses. The resolver generally passes its queries to named, and then passes the answer(s) from named to your program. You determine your nameserver priority in /etc/resolv.conf so if you do set up a server locally, make sure to list your ISP's server as a backup just in case. This is vastly simplified, but I hope that it helps you keep things straight. Good luck, Doug
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