What is Reddit's opinion of DNS and BIND (5th Edition)?

From 3.5 billion Reddit comments

BIND is a solid name server. It runs many of the root servers to this day. It seems to have gotten past its decades of frequent ugly security vulnerabilities. If you start with BIND, and read the Cricket book, you will get your fundamentals down.

But your day-to-day with bind in going to be editing %@#%! zones files, which are so fussy, and easy to make a mistake. Forgot a period (.) after the CNAME target? Did you iterate the serial? Are you trying to break that 2048bit DKIM key over several lines? Why is the TTL on this record so long? How can I let my friend manage his own zone? Wait, why won't named restart, taking down every zone, over a trivial typo in one zone? What's your plan to get new zones out to slave servers? It's just such a hassle. There are DB backends for BIND, but they are very much bolt-on afterthoughts.

DNS and BIND by Cricket Liu

Make very sure you only buy the hardcover version of this one, you're going to use it as a permanent reference forever & ever:

TCP/IP Illustrated, Vol 1: The Protocols

Thank you for your reply. Really useful!

Is it this one?

https://www.amazon.com/DNS-BIND-5th-Cricket-Liu/dp/0596100574

I think this book covers most of your subjects.
https://www.amazon.com/DNS-BIND-5th-Cricket-Liu/dp/0596100574

​

Nothing wrong with the for Dummies series :p
https://www.amazon.com/DNS-Dummies-Blair-Rampling/dp/0764516833

If you want to run Bind to learn it I'd install it on another computer and point your pi-hole to it. That way if you break Bind you can tweak the pi-hole and get your DNS back working.

I run a pair of pi-holes pointed to a copy of Unbound on a different server that is then pointed at OpenDNS. I could use the Unbound as a resolver rather than a forwarder but I like some of the OpenDNS features.

Playing with Unbound a bit before jumping into Bind is a good idea, for Bind I'd suggest this 600 page book:

https://www.amazon.com/DNS-BIND-5th-Cricket-Liu/dp/0596100574

A 500 count bottle of aspirin and some ice for your forehead after you start banging it on your desk.

> DNS is simple

On the surface, mayhaps. Dig a little bit deeper-- DNS and BIND - 642 pages

...and deeper-- Internet Systems Consortium DNS RFC - a collection of all 185 ISC recognized DNS related RFCs

No offense, but if you're that unfamiliar with basics like DNS records, please don't try to run your own mailserver.

I'm not picking on you, honest. It's not a task for the green or the faint of heart, and the best case scenario is you end up in blocklists from now until doomsday before too much damage gets done.

I really can't recommend the ORA animal books strongly enough (I just ordered 2 more while getting these links.) The Cricket has all you need to know about DNS, even if you're not using BIND and Safe, though a few years old, is still an excellent resource, just not, perhaps, an exhaustive one.

And my friends, we have an example of why people advocate for open source software such as Linux being used.

I would hope a guru (which I am not) would come along and give a lengthy and detailed answer, and considering reddit's size I am positive that they exist and that this question is probably more appropriately asked in /r/linuxquestions than here.

That said, if it was me alone on an island (as it feels like often) I would compile minimal custom versions of linux with added break points in the code to report the state of the binding of the static i.p. Which might also include an analysis of how "bind" works.

But I strongly suggest that you ask this question in /r/linuxquestions first as I am sure that the answers will be entertaining if not informative. Good luck OP.

Edit: Another poster mentioned a way to work like Debian to escape problems with the gui. Here is an interesting description of running the pi headless and escape the gui altogether. It will require a serial cable attached to gpio pins on the pi to do so. No matter what you could assign static IPs the same way they do there.