Use your own Nameserver - Saving time - saving *internet pollution* - easy steps with SuSE Linux 9.2 to setup your own DNS using Public Access DNS Nameservers as forwarders

Use your own Nameserver
- Saving time
- saving "Internet pollution"
- easy steps with SuSE Linux 9.2 to setup your own DNS using Public Access DNS Nameservers as forwarders

years ago - in 2000 - I needed my own DNS - hence i *studied bind* - it took about 2 weeks of studying and testing as a novice - then i was running ...
why i needed my own in box DNS ??
my local Internet cafe had NO SMTP server - NOR did any local ISP offer such normal service on the island of Fuerteventura / Spain .. to mail out my spiritual newsletters i needed to create my own solution - to configure an inbox (sendmail) SMTP server. That however required a nameserver for resolving of recipients mail domain ...

finally it worked perfect for years. until 2004 may.

now my old configuration no longer worked with SuSE Linux 9.2 BUT
Novell/SuSE now is far more comfortable than ever before.

FIRST of course - you have installed the packages
- bind
- bindchrootenv
- bind-libs
- bind-utils


then in YAST you select
- YAST
- Network Services
- DNS Server


a truly easy to use DNS configuration / management tool for novice user and normal out of the box use in laptops !!

select
Start-Up

then you enter your machines domain name - in my case it's *gott.liebe*
then select
forwarders

make sure you have NO "forwarders" entries here - we want to resolve all directly from the original source - the so called root server !!! resulting in totally inbox self-sufficient DNS service for your own surfing independent of your ISPs.

then

save settings and restart DNS server now
make sure you have changed your DNS settings in
/etc/resolv.conf
TOP line similar or equal to bellow line depending on your local IP of your linux machine - in my case - original SuSE Linux default it will be in /etc/resolv.conf - first line:
nameserver 127.0.0.1
OR
in your YAST network configuration set the first DNS now to your local IP - usually on linux 120.0.0.1
because YOUR Linux box offers now the DNS service to you !!

then you test your DNS with your own website domain or any other domain

as an example for time saving here below my DNS query using dig - the first time and a second time. you see the time difference is substantial.
but of course more importantly you reduce www traffic by letting your own DNS do all the subsequent DNS queries in your own box without the use of any www bandwidth or other people's resources.
having your own DNS also may save you frustration to experience when traveling and finding a local ISP's DNS DOWN - resulting in unknown host ...
YES this has happened far more than once to me here in the Philippines !!

here below my 2 test runs to show you the time savings:
the first query for name resolving is:


dig kriyayoga.com
...
;; QUESTION SECTION:
;kriyayoga.com. IN A
...
;; ANSWER SECTION:
kriyayoga.com. 10800 IN A 217.160.226.76
... ;; Query time: 415 msec
;; SERVER: 202.91.171.11#53(202.91.171.11)
;; WHEN: Tue Mar 22 00:53:48 2005
;; MSG SIZE rcvd: 47

that is a normal query from a normal DNS Nameserver. the same or similar result i would have on my first query of a particular domain name. any additional query however gives a result like below 2nd query with the newly reactivated in-box DNS Nameserver.

the second query for same domain gives:

dig kriyayoga.com
...
...
;; Query time: 7 msec
;; SERVER: 127.0.0.1#53(127.0.0.1)
;; WHEN: Tue Mar 22 01:26:12 2005
;; MSG SIZE rcvd: 466

if you manually change your nameserver / bind9 configuration - to reload the new data run in shell the command

rcnamed reload

and to restart the nameserver run

rcnamed restart

to update your now operational DNS Nameserver here an easy to use shell script i found - root.hint.update - and modified slightly for use with bind 9.x / English version. Download and copy it into your
/var/lib/maned
folder and run it from there in your shell
./root.hint.update

then open the file root.hint
and check near bottom of page the current TIME stamp - if the time is current
then your update was successful. this script should work on SuSE Linux 9.2 out of the box and may work on most other Linux as well.


enjoy and have fun


love and bliss

hans