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Why would I install a DNS server on my Ubuntu server?

rated 0 times [ 6] [ 0] / answers: 1 / hits: 7503 / 1 Year ago, fri, december 2, 2022, 1:17:20

When you install Ubuntu server, the default Ubuntu server will only store the core system, but there is an option to add additional server roles. One of these is a "DNS Server".

From what I read, when you add this choice to your installation, Ubuntu adds the bind9 and bind9-doc packages to your system. These packages provide the Bind 9 DNS server and its documentation. Now in fact a DNS server is simply a technology that takes a host name and automatically finds the IP address for that host on the Internet. Whenever you purchase a domain, for example, on Godaddy, you have the option on their website to point that hostname at your public IP address. It's that simple. So why would anyone need to set up a DNS server on their Ubuntu installation?

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diffeah

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2 Years ago

answered 1 Year ago enincroscope · Accepted Answer

This is a very open question, there are lots of reasons to run a local DNS server. I'll give you why we use it at work:

As a cache to improve performance. Most of DNS queries are shared among lots of computers, if they are cached on our DNS server, clients don't need to connect to internet to resolve it, a much faster LAN connection will do it.

We want to name some computers that are only available in the LAN (i.e. on our network, you can't access then from the internet). Some of our servers can only be accessed from the internal network, we want our users to be able do it with a normal name using the same tools that they are used.

We give different IPs to some names: in a public (ISP) DNS our web server will resolve to our public (internet-facing) IP. When someone from the LAN ask our DNS to resolve its name we return our private IP.

To temporary ban some domain names, sometimes we need to ban for a couple of minutes some website, an easy way to do it is to change the IP it's pointing. As an example, a couple of months ago a virus was making lots of connections to a strange website. We changed it's name at the DNS forwarding it to a fake web server. Not only did we block it, we also get to quickly discover the infected machine by looking at the web server logs.