How To Setup TinyDNS Server In 3 Minutes

Last weekend was my first time to setup and configure DNS server for a small office network with hundred units of networked computers. As usual, due to cost factor, the management decides to run an open-source DNS daemon on an aging Intel-based PC with Red Hat Linux 9.

After searching for some information, I decided to deploy djbdns (a.k.a tinydns) – a tiny, powerful, open-source DNS daemon of Dan Bernstein.
Almost one week of monitoring, the djbdns / tinydns server performance is quite acceptable! So, I take this opportunity to write out my so-called summarized version of djbdns / tinydns setup guide for quick reference.
I can confirm that this guide will take 3 minutes (more or less) to setup a DNS server for an internal network of any size, by using Dan Bernstein’s djbdns / tinydns daemon.

Before proceed to djbdns / tinydns installation steps, please download daemontools-0.76.tar.gz and djbdns-1.05.tar.gz from Dan Bernstein’s official site. Alternative download of djbdns / tinydns and daemontools from WalkerNews.net Download Center (md5 checksum printed on homepage).

Assumption for these “3-minutes djbdns / tinydns setup guide”:

• All the djbdns / tinydns compilation and setup are done with root user ID. Try to avoid using sudo command for simplicity,
• djbdns / tinydns daemon is running on Red Hat Linux 9 with IP address 172.101.20.25 (non-public, private IP of the internal network)

How to compile and install daemontools?
 

Create the package installation directory with 1755 permission:

mkdir –p /package
chmod 1755 /package

Copy daemontools-0.76.tar.gz into /package directory and untar the gzipped source code:

tar -zxvpf daemontools-0.76.tar.gz
cd admin/daemontools-0.76

Fix daemontools compilation problem on latest version of glibc package:

vi src/error.h to replace extern int errno; with #include <errno.h>

Compile and install daemontools

package/install

Once the daemontools compilation completed successfully, you should have seen these last few lines:

Copying commands into ./command…
Creating symbolic link daemontools -> daemontools-0.76…
Making command links in /command…
Making compatibility links in /usr/local/bin…
Creating /service…
Adding svscanboot to inittab…
init should start svscan now

Execute command ps -elf | grep svscan should confirm that /bin/sh /command/svscanboot and svscan /service are running too.
 

How to compile and install djbdns / tinydns?
 

Copy djbdns-1.05.tar.gz into /package directory and un-tar the gzipped source code:

tar -zxvpf djbdns-1.05.tar.gz
cd /package/djbdns-1.05

Fix djbdns / tinydns compilation problem on latest version of glibc package:

vi error.h to replace extern int errno; with #include <errno.h>

Compile and install djbdns server

make
make setup check
 

Configure djbdns / tinydns server
 

Create user account to run tinydns service and logging facility:

/usr/sbin/useradd –s /bin/false tinydns
/usr/sbin/useradd –s /bin/false dnslog

Configure tinydns service with the bundled tinydns-conf utility:

tinydns-conf tinydns dnslog /etc/tinydns 172.101.20.25

The tinydns-conf utility will configure tinydns user account to run tinydns service, dnslog user account to run DNS logging facility, creates /etc/tinydns directory and defines that the tinydns service will listen on the server IP address (172.101.20.25).

Create symbolic link of /etc/tinydns to /service directory so that the svscan of daemontools will start up tinydns service and continue monitor the states:

ln –s /etc/tinydns /service

To confirm the tinydns service is running:

svstat /service/tinydns

Alternative, you can use netstat or lsof command to confirm the UDP port 53 (domain service port as per RFC-1035) has been opened by djbdns / tinydns:

netstat -tulpa | grep domain
lsof -i | grep domain

Now, it’s time to maintain the hostname-IP information of networked computers to djbdns / tinydns daemon:

cd /service/tinydns/root
vi data

and insert the djbdns / tinydns server IP as the first record:

..:172.101.20.25:a:259200

Subsequently, add hostname-IP of other networked computers into this ASCII text file. For example,

=blog.walkernews.net:172.101.20.25:86400
=download.walkernews.net:172.101.20.26:86400

to add hostname-IP of blog.walkernews.net (the djbdns / tinydns server itself) and download.walkernews.net (just another internal networked host).

After save and exit the /service/tinydns/root/data file, type make command (must be done inside /service/tinydns/root directory) to “compile” the /service/tinydns/root/data to /service/tinydns/root/data.cdb (Applesoft BASIC program data file format), which is used by the daemon to resolve hostname-IP requests.

That’s all done for the DNS server setup! You can proceed to configure DNS setting of networked computers to resolve hostname-IP address with djbdns / tinydns, i.e. 172.101.20.25:

Red Hat Linux and most Linux distribution
 

Add or update the client’s DNS setting:

vi /etc/resolv.conf

with at least these two simple lines:

search walkernews.net
nameserver 172.101.20.25

After save and exit the /etc/resolv.conf file, the Linux networking components should able to resolve a given hostname by referring to DNS server at 172.101.20.25. The search walkernews.net will tell Linux to automatically complete FQDN format for a given hostname. For example, ping blog is equal to blog.walkernews.net.
 

Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows 2003, Windows Vista
 

Right-click the Local Area Network connection and click on the Properties to bring up Local Area Connection Properties dialog box,

Select Internet Protocol Version 4 (TCP/IPv4) and click on the Properties button to bring up Internet Protocol Version 4 (TCP/IPv4) Properties dialog box,

Click on the Advanced button to bring up Advanced TCP/IP Settings dialog box,

Click on the DNS tab and enter the djbdns / tinydns IP address as of following snapshot:

Credit of the original djbdns / tinydns and daemontools setup guide that I’ve referred to.

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