A few helpful Bind DNS server configuration
options
It's quite useful in bind to have the following configurations
options in either
named.conf options {} configuration block
or (in case if on Debian Linux in
named.conf.options.
Please edit your required file respectively and find the
options
{} directive and set within the options {} block the
following:
zone-statistics yes;
notify yes;
transfer-format many-answers;
Here I have to clarify that the
zone-statistics directive
instructs the server to collect statistical data about all zone
files, this statistics can later be accessed via the:
rndc stats command.
transfer-format many-answers is actually a default directive
since bind 9 and you might even like to skip that one if on bind
version 9 or 9+
notify yes; - will instruct the nameserver to replicate
change in zone files to a seconday configured name server.
Another really vital thing in my view is to enable Bind DNS server
logging into file.
In order to do that put in
named.conf:
logging {
channel _default_log {
file "/var/log/named/named.log";
severity debug;
print-time yes;
};
category default {
_default_log;
};
Note that it's required to create the log file with proper
permissions as in the location where specified in the above
configuration in this case
/var/log/named/named.log :
debian-server# mkdir -p /var/log/named
debian-server# touch /var/log/named/named.log
debian-server# chown -R bind:bind
/var/log/named/
In this case I change the directory and file to be owned by the
bind user and group, however on different linux distribution like
Redhat the user could be different like on Redhat the user is
usually named.
To find the correct user permissions check the user with which the
Bind server is running using a simple:
debian-server# ps axu|grep -i bind
or
# ps axu|grep -i named