DNS and BIND [Paperback]

Cricket Liu (Author), Paul Albitz (Author), Mike Loukides (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 1565925122 | ISBN-13: 978-1565925120 | Publication Date: November 8, 1998 | Edition: Third Edition

DNS and BIND discusses one of the Internet's fundamental building blocks: the distributed host information database that's responsible for translating names into addresses, routing mail to its proper destination, and many other services. As the authors write in the preface, if you're using the Internet, you're already using DNS -- even if you don't know it.

The third edition covers BIND 4.9, on which most commercial products are currently based, and BIND 8, which implements many important new features and will be the basis for the next generation of commercial name servers. It also covers topics like DNS security (greatly improved with BIND 8.1), asynchronous notification of changes to a zone, dynamic updates, and programming with Perl's Net::DNS module.

Whether you're an administrator involved with DNS on daily basis, or a user who wants to be more informed about the Internet and how it works, you'll find that this book is essential reading.

Topics include:

• What DNS does, how it works, and when you need to use it
• How to find your own place in the Internet's name space
• Setting up name servers
• Using MX records to route mail
• Configuring hosts to use DNS name servers
• Subdividing domains (parenting)
• Securing your name server: restricting who can query your server, preventing unauthorized zone transfers, avoiding bogus name servers, etc.
• Mapping one name to several servers for load sharing
• Troubleshooting: using nslookup, reading debugging output, common problems
• DNS programming, using the resolver library and Perl's Net::DNS module

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

This is the definitive book on the Domain Name System (DNS), the powerful scheme that facilitates the translation of English-like domain names (www.amazon.com) into computer-comprehensible Internet Protocol (IP) addresses (208.216.182.15). If you run a DNS server of any kind, particularly under Unix, you need to have this book on hand.

This book's early chapters give a view of DNS from high altitude, explaining basic concepts such as domains, name servers, and name resolution. From there, the authors proceed on a more practical tack, presenting specific instructions for setting up your own domain and DNS server using BIND. The authors then tell you what to do as your domain grows and you need to add more machines, subdomains, and greater throughput capacity. They also talk a lot about nslookup and C programming with the various DNS and BIND libraries. Administrators will find the chapter on BIND debugging output particularly helpful. Here, the authors translate BIND's mysterious error messages and offer specific strategies for fixing and optimizing the program. This edition covers BIND 8.1.2, but pays lots of attention to older versions that are still in wide use (4.8.3 and 4.9). The authors are careful to note differences among the versions. --David Wall

Review

'Now into its fourth edition, updated to cover BIND 9, the O'Reilly textbook has already attained classic status. DNS and BIND can be found on the shelf, or more likely open on the desk, of most clued-up system administrators... Don't expect a fun read ... the subject matter is a little dry for that ... but if you like your Unix and want to truly understand how DNS works in general and in practice within your enterprise, this is the book to buy.' - Davey Winder, PC PRO, September 'This book has been the bible for DNS administration since 1992. .. I can't fault this new edition of the book. The first edition serve me well when I was setting up my first DNS server. The book still achieves what it sets out to do, and explains DNS and BIND. This has got more complicated (sorry, feature rich!) over the years, but this book still explains it in clear terms. O'Reilly rightly made their name through publishing titles like this.' - Joel Smith, new@UK, December 2001 'This book is as useful now as it was back in the mid 90's. Buy it if you have to do any more than be a simple user of DNS. As a measure of how times change, the appendices no longer show you how to compile and install BIND on a Sun operating system, it is now shown with Linux.' - Raza Rizvi, new@UK, December 2001 --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 499 pages
• Publisher: O'Reilly Media; Third Edition edition (November 8, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1565925122
• ISBN-13: 978-1565925120
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.9 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (66 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,861,286 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #42 in Books > Computers & Technology > Operating Systems > Unix > Administration

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

35 of 36 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Comprehensive, well-written, and accessible., November 11, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: DNS and Bind (A Nutshell Handbook) (Paperback)

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!

36 of 39 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Makes Transition To Bind 8 Painless!, February 25, 2000

By 

Jon R. Kibler - See all my reviews

This review is from: DNS and BIND (Paperback)

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.

17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Setting up BIND on a *ix server? Start here., January 9, 2002

By 

Kip Perkins (Mt Juliet, TN United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: DNS and BIND, Fourth Edition (Paperback)

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.