@ SOA example.com. ( ; example.com is the primary server for this zone
webmaster ; contact email is [email protected]
2007112800 ; Serial ID in reverse date format
21600 ; Refresh interval for slave servers
1800 ; Retry interval for slave servers
604800 ; Expire limit for cached info on slave servers
900 ) ; Minimum Cache TTL in zone records
Here we have the SOA (Start of Authority) section of the zone file. This is where we define various information and time limits (in seconds). One thing to note here is the Serial ID which is basically just an integer that let’s the slave servers know whether this file has changed or not. 2007112800 would be the first revision on 11/28/2007 whereas 2008010101 would be the second revision on 01/01/2008
@ NS ns1 ; ns1.example.com is a nameserver for example.com
@ NS ns2 ; ns2.example.com is a nameserver for example.com
Here we define the authoritative nameservers for this domain. A non-authoritative nameserver (or dns response) would be from your ISP’s dns for example.
@ MX 10 mail.example.com. ; mail.example.com is the mail server for this zone
The MX (Mail Exchange) record defines this domain/zone’s email server (mail.example.com in this case).
@ A 192.168.1.1 ; example.com's ip address is 1.192.168.1.1
ns1 A 192.168.1.2 ; ns1.example.com's ip address is 192.168.1.2
ns2 A 192.168.1.3 ; ns2.example.com's ip address is 192.168.1.3
mail A 192.168.1.4 ; mail.example.com's ip address is 192.168.1.4
An A (Address) record defines the domain or subdomain’s IP address. As you might have noticed already the @ stands for the zone file’s domain (example.com in this case). Additionally, if you do not end your name with a period (.) then it will append the domain to it. For example, ns1 becomes ns1.example.com whereas ns1.example.com would become ns1.example.com.example.com.
www CNAME example.com. ; www.example.com is the same as example.com
A CNAME (Canonical Name) directly associates one name with another. Therefore www.example.com is the same as example.com.
/var/named/chroot/var/named/1.168.192.in-addr.arpa.zone — Download This File
$TTL 86400
@ SOA example.com. ( webmaster 2007112800 21600 1800 604800 900 )
Up until this point it is the same as our other zone file just with less whitespace and commenting.
You are required to enter at least one nameserver.
1 IN PTR example.com.
2 IN PTR ns1.example.com.
3 IN PTR ns2.example.com.
4 IN PTR mail.example.com.
We use PTR (pointer) records to define the domain names for each of our known ip addresses on 192.168.1.*. For example, 192.168.1.4 will now resolve as mail.example.com
Let’s start the server and then make sure it comes up after a reboot.
# service named start
# chkconfig named on
If you got an error while starting named go back and make sure you have a semi-colon in all the right spots in your named.conf
Now let’s test our nameserver to make sure it is working correctly.
# dig @localhost +short A example.com
192.168.1.1 |