Domain Name Server - Alternative

NSD Domain Server is an authoritative only, high performance, simple and open source name server.

Planning

Prerequisites

IP Addresses

Firewall-Gateway

Software Installation

NSD is in the Ubuntu software packages repository.

Note

As of Mar 05, 2023 there is an issue with the installation package of NSD. The installation appears to fail, as the service can’t be started. As a work-around, create the user and group nsd before starting the installation.

$ sudo adduser --system --group --no-create-home --home /etc/nsd nsd
$ sudo apt-get install nsd

The installation does the following

A configuration directory structure /etc/nsd/ with …

The main configuration file /etc/nsd/nsd.conf

Private key and certificate called nsd_control in PEM format.

Private key and certificate called nsd_server in PEM format.

The subdirectory /etc/nsd/nsd.conf.d to include additional configuration files.

A directory /var/lib/nsd owned by root for storing dynamically added zones, the database /var/lib/nsd/nsd.db, the transfer state file var/lib/nsd/xfrd.state.

A directory /var/lib/nsddb/ owned by root containing various *.db and one pcks11.txt files.

The Ubunntu Upstart job configuration /etc/init/nsd.conf is created and the job started.

There is also a system service script /etc/init.d/nsd created. But it starts only if no running Ubuntu Upstart job is detected.

Server Configuration

The main configuration file /etc/nsd/nsd.conf installed is emtpy. But a sample configuration files /usr/share/doc/nsd/examples/nsd.conf.gz is provided in compressed format. To read it one can use the following command:

$ zless /usr/share/doc/nsd/examples/nsd.conf.gz

Additionally there is a manpage nsd.conf(5) and the official online documentation

Monitoring

Todo

Add log files to monitor