ITEM: Y3394L
Setting Up a Primary DNS Server Fax
Primary name server setup
This document provides the instructions for the initial setup
of a primary nameserver and a client on any RISC System/6000
running 3.2. This procedure is simple, and has been thoroughly tested.
Before we begin, you should decide the following:
1) Determine the systems that will be in the domain
2) Determine the domain name (This name is not related to NIS)
3) Choose the primary nameserver (Any RISC System/6000)
4) The remaining systems will be clients
5) Edit the /etc/hosts to contain all of the clients that you
want in the domain for the nameserver. It is very easy to
add hosts to the nameserver later on, but it makes it easy
to already have them in your /etc/hosts.
*************** PLEASE READ THIS CAREFULLY *******************
NOTE: This setup includes filenames and domain names that will
be different for each setup. In order to distinguish the
difference between names that you are free to choose, and
names that must be typed in exactly as they appear in this
document, I will use the following convention. All names
in this file that appear in ALL CAPS are user-definable.
This means if the file name, or domain name is in ALL CAPS
than you are free to choose its name. This setup does not
include any file names that you should type in ALL CAPS.
This naming convention is only being adopted to distinguish
the difference between exact names and user-definable names.
These are the names that are used in this example:
Hostname of nameserver: NAMESERVER
Hostname of client: CLIENT
Domain name: YOUR.DOMAIN.NAME
IP address of nameserver: IPADDRESS
Name zone file: FILE.DATA
IP zone file: FILE.REV
Local ip zone file: LOCAL.IP
You are free to choose any of the names above that are in
ALL CAPS. Your names should not be in ALL CAPS.
***************** PLEASE READ THIS CAREFULLY *******************
If you have done the above, you are ready to begin the simple
setup procedures for configuring a primary nameserver. The
process consists of eight steps:
1) Create the "named" control file using your favorite editor.
The file must be located in the /etc directory and has to
be called /etc/named.boot so that the named daemon can read
it when it starts. This file will contain the location of
of all the data that the daemon will use to create the initial
nameserver database. The following is an example of the file
called /etc/named.boot:
directory /etc/nameserver
domain YOUR.DOMAIN.NAME
primary YOUR.DOMAIN.NAME FILE.DATA
primary in-addr.arpa FILE.REV
primary 0.0.127.in-addr.arpa LOCAL.IP
These are only five entries that need to be on the nameserver
in the /etc/named.boot file. After saving this file, use the
make directory command to create the nameserver directory that
will eventually contain the files FILE.DATA and FILE.REV.
cd /etc
mkdir nameserver
2) IBM's AIX 3.2 contains a very useful awk script that will
create the FILE.DATA for us, using the /etc/hosts file as input.
If you have an /etc/hosts, you can do the following:
cd /usr/lpp/tcpip/samples
hosts.awk /etc/hosts > /etc/nameserver/FILE.DATA
This will use the /etc/hosts as input, and run the hosts.awk
script and redirect the output to your FILE.DATA.
3) IBM's AIX 3.2 contains another useful awk script that will
create the file FILE.REV for us using the /etc/hosts file
as input. You can do the following:
cd /usr/lpp/tcpip/samples
addrs.awk /etc/hosts > /etc/nameserver/FILE.REV
This will use the /etc/hosts as input, and run the addrs.awk
script and redirect the output to your FILE.REV.
4) You now need to create the file that will resolve your
local name on the nameserver. Use your favorite editor
to create the file /etc/nameserver/LOCAL.IP:
@ IN NS NAMESERVER.YOUR.DOMAIN.NAME.
1 IN PTR localhost.YOUR.DOMAIN.NAME.
These are the only two entries in this file. The entries
above require more explanation. The first entry is the
"at" sign (usually above the 2 key on the keyboard). The
next two entries to the right of the "at" sign must appear
exactly as they are typed. It is important that you include
the period at the end of both of these lines. The first three
columns of the second line should also appear exactly as they
do above.
5) You now need to create a file that notifies the system that
it is a nameserver. This file is called /etc/resolv.conf
and it must be empty. You should do the following:
rm /etc/resolv.conf
touch /etc/resolv.conf
6) Set the host name to your fully qualified name:
smit mkhostname
Set the hostname to NAMESERVER
7) You are now ready to start the named daemon. You can
do the following:
startsrc -s named
8) You can also uncomment the line in the /etc/rc.tcpip file
that will start the named daemon every time the system
reboots. You can use your favorite editor to uncomment
following line in /etc/rc.tcpip:
start /etc/named "$src_running"
The setup for the primary nameserver is now complete. You should
test the setup by attempting to resolve some of the names that
were in your /etc/hosts. You can do the following:
host NAMESERVER
host IPADDRESS
(You should substitute your actual ip address of the nameserver for IPADDRESS)
Each command should return the following:
NAMESERVER.YOUR.DOMAIN.NAME is IPADDRESS
If both commands did not return the fully qualified name, that means
that it did not use the nameserver to resolve the name. You
should double check the setup if you are having problems.
Note : if any changes are made to the various files set up for
Domain Name Services you should refresh the named to reflect
those changes: refresh -s named
It is also very easy to configure clients for this nameserver.
This is a three step process:
1) Create the /etc/resolv.conf using your favorite editor on the
client. This is what the file should look like on the client
for the above nameserver:
domain YOUR.DOMAIN.NAME
nameserver IPADDRESS
2) You should clean up your /etc/hosts on this client. The only
entries that need to be here are your local loopback. All other
name resolution will be done by the nameserver.
You can use the last three steps to setup other clients to the
nameserver, assuming that they were in the /etc/hosts when we
ran the awk scripts in steps 2 and 3 above.
If you want to add other clients to the nameserver, that were not
in the /etc/hosts of the nameserver at the time of the configuration
of the nameserver files, just use your favorite editor to add similar
entries in /etc/nameserver/FILE.DATA and in /etc/nameserver/FILE.REV.
After adding these new names, you must refresh the named on the
nameserver to re-read these files:
refresh -s named
You may need to stop and restart the named daemon if the changes
are not working:
stopsrc -s named
startsrc -s named
Support Line: Setting Up a Primary DNS Server Fax ITEM: Y3394L
Dated: August 1995 Category: N/A
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