HOWTO Configure a DNS server using BIND

This article was first written in May 2005 for the BeezNest technical
website (http://glasnost.beeznest.org/articles/261).

The config files

named.conf

named.conf.local

zone "example.com" {
        type master;
        file "/etc/bind/db.example.com";
        allow-query { any; };
        allow-transfer { trusted; };
};

db.example.com

Some definitions

SOA
Start Of Authority.

A
…

NS
…

MX
…

CNAME
…

@
The @ is interpreted as the current domain name [1].

The ending .
What is the difference between example.com. and example.com?
If the name doesn’t end with a dot, BIND append the current domain name.
So example.com. will define example.com while example.com will define example.com.example.com (which is probably not what you want ;-.

[1] BIND knows the current domain name because the db.* file is read based on the zone definition declared in the named.conf.local.