Introducing the BIND Linux DNS Server

The BIND DNS server is by far the most widely used DNS server on the Internet and is considered to be the defacto standard on Linux and other Unix-like operating systems. BIND was originally written in the early 1980's at the University of California at Berkeley as a graduate student project funded by a grant from the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Administration (DARPA). The acronym BIND was derived from its first domain use, Berkeley Internet Name Domain, and the server software being the Berkeley Internet Name Domain (BIND) Server.

Initial versions of the BIND DNS server through to 4.8.3 were maintained by the Computer Systems Research Group (CSRG) at UC Berkeley. Futher work on the BIND software package was done by Ralph Campbell. Kevin Dunlap, a Digital Equipment Corporation employee on loan to the CSRG, worked on BIND for 2 years from 1985 to 1987. BIND versions 4.9 and 4.9.1 were released by Digital Equipment Corporation. Paul Vixie, then a DEC employee, became BIND's primary caretaker. BIND Version 4.9.2 was sponsored by Vixie Enterprises. BIND versions from 4.9.3 onward have been developed and maintained by the Internet Systems Consortium with support being provided by ISC's sponsors.

BIND can be considered to be a complete implementation of the Domain Name System (DNS) protocols and contains software that allows one computer to find another computer via its name rather than its IP address. It contains the software needed to ask name service questions and answer such questions. BIND is a reference implementation of the Domain Name System protocols, but it is also production-grade software, suitable for use in high-volume and high-reliability applications. Its reputation as a robust and stable DNS server ensures that it is the most widely used DNS software on the internet. The BIND DNS server software can be divided into three different parts, each component performing a seperate role in the operation of your Linux DNS server-

The Domain Name System Server is a program called named (pronounced name-dee) which stands for name daemon. Named answers DNS requests that are sent to it and it allows you to provide a DNS service on the internet but it must be configured with correct information about your domain names.

The Domain Name System Resolver is a program that resolves questions about domain names and their hosts by querying the authoritive nameservers and responding appropriately to the servers replies. The resolver facilitates the process of resolving domain names and host names into IP addresses so that the host for a particular service can be identified and contacted by its name.

Additional Software Tools are provided with the BIND distribution so that the configuration of the Linux DNS server can be tested to ensure that it is working correctly.