Installation and Setup of BIND DNS Server

DNS is stands for "Domain Naming Services".It is very crucial server or services specially when you want ot access your server from internet.The reason for this is that domain names are much easier to type for users, and easier to remember. Thus, you need a DNS server if you plan on having Internet users connect to your server. The standard DNS server is the Berkeley Internet Name Domain (BIND). BIND is available through the Internet Software Consortum, or ISC at isc.org. In addition, BIND should be available through your distribution. In the case of BIND, I would recommend downloading the packages through your distribution's website. Before you may use a domain name, you must first register it, which there are several services available to register domain names. Once installed, you should then edit /etc/named.conf, and add the following information to it:

zone "desireddomain.com" {

type master;

file "desireddomain.db";

};
You will of course replace the "desireddomain" strings as appropriate with your new domain name. This entry tells the named service that this server is the master server (with DNS, 2 DNS servers are required, for redundancy). Now then, we will now create the "desireddomain.db" file, which should be placed in the working directory of named, which is specified in the beginning of /etc/named.conf. In this file, we should place the following information:

IN SOA nameofyourfirstdnsserver.com. nameofyourseconddnsserver.com. (

1000000; Serial

10800 ; Refresh - 3 hours

3600 ; Retry - 1 hour

86400 ; Expire - 24 hours

3600 ) ; Minimum - 1 hour

IN NS nameofyourfirstdnsserver.com
www IN A ipaddressofwebserver ftp

IN A ipaddressofftpserver smtp

IN A ipaddressofmailserver
This should be saved in the directory specified in the first few lines of /etc/named.conf. Now, we will configure a secondary DNS server, or a slave DNS server. This is much easier than setting up the primary/master server. The only file to change will be the /etc/named.conf on the secondary server. You should save the following in the /etc/named.conf file:

zone "desireddomain.com" { type slave; file "desireddomain.db"; };

Now, we can grab the configuration file from the first server using a utility that comes with BIND, named-xfer. We will do this by entering:

named-xfer -z desireddomain.com -f desireddomain.db \ -s 0 addressofprimarynameserver

This will copy the configuration file from the primary DNS server. BIND should start automatically, if not, you may start it with the following command (for most systems):
/etc/init.d/named start

You should allow somewhere between 24 and 48 hours for the DNS records to be updated once you move your DNS server from host to host. DNS is a great protocol, and makes our lives easier, by allowing us to be lazy (simply type a domain name instead of an IP).

Naming of Windows Workgroups and Domains

Each Windows computer belongs either to a workgroup or a domain. Home networks and other small LANs utilize workgroups, whereas larger business networks operate with domains. Choosing proper workgroup and/or domain names is essential to avoiding technical problems in networking Windows computers. Ensure your workgroups and/or domains are named appropriately according to the following rules;

• Ensure each workgroup and domain name is no longer than 15 characters.


• Ensure no workgroup or domain name contains spaces. Windows ME and earlier versions of Windows do not support workgroups or domains with spaces in their name.


• Whenever possible, ensure all computers on the LAN use the same workgroup/domain name. Using common workgroups/domains makes it easier to browse the network and avoids some security complications when sharing files. Note that the default workgroup name in Windows XP is "MSHOME" but in older versions of Windows is "WORKGROUP".


• Ensure the name of the workgroup/domain is different from the name of any computer on that network.

Avoid special characters in workgroup and domain names. Whenever possible, do not use any of the characters when naming Windows workgroups and domains: / \ * , . " @

• For simplicity, avoid using lower-case letters in workgroup or domain names.


• The workgroup name need not match the network name (SSID) on a Wi-Fi LAN.

To set or change workgroup/domain names in Windows XP, right-click on My Computer or open the System icon in Control Panel, then choose the Computer Name tab and finally, click the Change... button to access the workgroup/domain name fields.

To set or change workgroup/domain names in Windows 2000, open the System icon in Control Panel and choose the Network Identification tab, then click the Properties button.

To set or change workgroup/domain names in older versions of Windows, open the Network icon in Control Panel and choose the Identification tab.

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