DNS and Bind

by Paul Albitz and Cricket Liu

Book Overview

DNS and BIND tells you everything you need to work with one of the Internet's fundamental building blocks: the distributed host information database that's responsible for translating names into... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0596001584
• ISBN13: 9780596001582
• Release Date: April 2001
• Publisher: O'Reilly Media
• Length: 622 Pages
• Weight: 2.00 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 7.0" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

Most comprehensive book on DNS and Bind

First off, the most recent edition of this book was published in May 2006, so all reviews prior to that are discussing previous editions of this book. The domain name system or domain name server (DNS) is a system that stores and associates many types of information with domain names, but, most important, it translates the domain name (computer hostnames) to IP addresses. It also lists mail exchange servers accepting e-mail for each domain. In providing a worldwide keyword-based redirection service, DNS is an essential component of contemporary Internet use. DNS is most well-known for making it possible to attach easy-to-remember domain names to hard-to-remember IP addresses. BIND (Berkeley Internet Name Domain) is the most commonly used DNS server on the Internet, especially on Unix-like systems, where it is a de facto standard. A new version of BIND (BIND 9) was written from scratch in part to address the architectural difficulties with auditing the earlier BIND code bases, and also to support DNSSEC (DNS Security Extensions). Other important features of BIND 9 include: TSIG, DNS notify, nsupdate, IPv6, rndc flush, views, multiprocessor support, and an improved portability architecture. This book was written to address these changes. DNS is being used for many more applications than in the past. With ENUM (electronic numbering), DNS is used by voice-over-IP gear. With SPF (the Sender Policy Framework), mailers look up information in DNS to check for mail spoofing. This makes DNS more critical than ever, and a target for hackers. To handle these additional applications and increased threats, DNS has had to be extended, adding cryptographic security, for example. These topics and others are covered in the new edition of DNS and BIND. Security is therefore one of the topics that is deeply covered in this book. The previous editions of this book also described how to secure name servers, but most readers probably felt the likelihood of their name servers coming under attack was remote where today it is probably going to happen. There's been a recent spate of DNS amplification attacks reported in the news, therefore it is necessary for system administrators of Internet name servers to guard against these attacks by limiting access top recursion, which is covered in the chapter entitled "Security". The new and fifth edition of this old standard covers BIND 9.3.2, the most recent release of the BIND 9 series, as well as BIND 8.4.7. Beginning with an introduction to DNS and what it does, the book guides administrators through all aspects of setting up, configuring, and working with the distributed host information database. Other topics include using MX records to route mail, subdividing domains, the DNS Security Extensions (DNSSEC) and Transaction Signatures (TSIG), dynamic updates, troubleshooting, and DNS programming using the resolver library and Perl's Net::DNS module. All of the programming examples in the book can be downloaded from the web

Setting up BIND on a *ix server? Start here.

I really needed to understand DNS/BIND; not just know how to start, run, and update it- but really understand DNS. This book was perfect. The authors introduced DNS with a high-level overview and then moved in closer to help you set it up. You can actually read the fist 3 chapters and work through the next 2 while setting up your server and domain. The rest of the book really gets into the nuts and bolts of DNS and BIND. Don't stop after chapter 5, continue reading and pick all the knowledge you will need to be a DNS/BIND admin.

Makes Transition To Bind 8 Painless!

Changing from a pre-8 version of BIND to version 8 of BIND is not as straightforward as previous upgrades have been. Then `named.boot' file is entirely different, among other changes. This book is great at identifying the required changes and assisting in making those changes.DNS and BIND clarifies all the mysteries associated with BIND (named) and DNS. Easy to read. Covers every detail from getting and installing the latest BIND, to configuration and troubleshooting. Has a great chapter on nslookup and another that gives detailed explanations of just about every BIND related error message. The only thing they left out is info on configuring syslog to manipulate in a usable manner the BIND generated messages.For some reason, DNS seems to be a mystery to so many sysadmins. If it were as simple as people often pretend it is (typical system admin person: "Oh, I already know everything about DNS that I need to know... so why read a book or take a course?"), then why do I see 15,000+ lame server messages and 250+ mail CNAME messages every month? These errors are only the result of DNS configuration errors!Very few sysadmin people REALLY know as much about BIND and DNS as they should. If you are a sysadmin person, do yourself a favor and buy and read this book. If you are an IT manager, check your system administrator's book shelf. If this book is missing, then buy it for them and make them read it! (You should read it first, then develop some test questions to see if they really did read it!)This BOOK MUST BE REQUIRED READING for EVERY system administrator on any type of system connected to the Internet. If everyone that administered an Internet site read this book, we could probably reduce the error traffic on the Internet by 50% or more!This book also should be the basis of a required one-quarter undergraduate CS course at all schools that teach CS, CE, IT, or equivalent.One of the best written of the O'Reilly books.Jon R. Kibler, Systems Architect, Advanced Systems Engineering Technology, Inc.

Simple Insight into DNS and BIND!

It doesn't matter if you're new to Linux/UNIX or if you've been using it for awhile, this book delves into the mysteries behind DNS and BIND and puts the right information in simple, easy to understand format at your fingertips! So easy to follow, I had my basic DNS up and running in a few hours and tweaked to maximum efficiency in a few days! If you're planning on setting up and running a DNS server or if you just need to run it for your internal network this book explains it all! Buy it now... you won't regret it! Kudos to Paul for such a wonderful peice of work!

Comprehensive, well-written, and accessible.

I'm the DNS administrator at a mid-size Internet Service Provider, and because we are an ISP, a lot of our day-to-day operations rely on the proper implementation of DNS. After all, as I found out today, we do primary DNS for approximately 1800 domains (yikes). The combination of everyday experience with DNS and the wealth of information - both theoretical and practical - that I got from this book has done so much for my understanding of DNS and of the Internet as a whole. The book begins with the basics of building a nameserver, but I know that if I have a specific question, I can use it as a reference book as well. It's also written in a straightforward, accessible manner. The only constructive criticism I can offer is that I wish it had more information about managing many domains (not just subdomains). That's still not enough to lower my overall rating to four starts from five. If you have to get one book on DNS, get this one - it will more than suffice. I look forward to the next edition covering BIND 8.x. Excellent job, O'Reilly, Paul Albitz, and Cricket Liu!