Networking / Beginners

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BIND

Berkeley Internet Name Domain (BIND) is an implementation of the DNS protocols on UNIX-based systems, including Linux. The BIND server is the most widely used DNS server on the Internet. It provides a very stable and reliable infrastructure on which the domain's name and its IP address associations are based. BIND is distributed freely. The latest version is available on the Web at the Internet Software Consortium's (ISC) Web site: http://www.isc.org/BIND.

BIND Installation

Installing BIND is relatively straightforward. The ISC includes sample definitions in the top-level Makefile for most common versions of UNIX, including Linux. The steps for installing BIND are as follows:

1. untar the package in a directory.
2. Execute the ./configure command from the directory where the package was uncompressed.
3. Compile the distribution using the make command.

Starting and Stopping BIND

The BIND daemon can be started, stopped, or restarted by using the normal daemon control scripts found in the /etc/rc.d/init.d/ directory. It is considered a good practice to check the system log for errors and warnings whenever the name server is started or restarted. An invalid directive or option in the daemon control scripts can cause errors in the name server, preventing it from starting or halting abruptly.

To start the named daemon, you can use the following command:

/etc/rc.d/init.d/named start

Now, to restart a server in RHL, you can use the following command:

/etc/rc.d/init.d/named reload

To stop an already running named daemon, you can use the following command:

/etc/rc.d/init.d/named stop

The command to terminate BIND forcefully is as follows:

kill -9 `cat /var/run/named.pid`