This book is for system administrators and network architects who need to learn how to run and configure DNS servers. A working knowledge of TCP/IP protocols is presumed.

Alena Kabelova was born in 1964 in Budweis, Europe. She graduated in ICT at the Economical University in Prague. She worked together with Libor Dostalek as a hostmaster. She is mostly involved in development and schooling of software. At present, she works as a senior project manager at the PVT and focuses mainly on electronic banking. Her experiences as the hostmaster of an important European ISP are applied in this publication. Libor Dostalek was born in 1957 in Prague, Europe. He graduated in mathematics at the Charles University in Prague. Since last 20 years he has been involved in ICT architecture and security. His experiences as the IT architect and the hostmaster of one of the first European Internet Service Providers have been used while writing this publication. Later he became an IT architect of one of the first home banking applications fully based on the PKI architecture, and also an IT architect of one of the first GSM banking applications (mobile banking). As a head consultant, he designed the architecture of several European public certification service providers (certification authorities) and also many e-commerce and e-banking applications. The public knows him either as an author of many publications about TCP/IP and security or as a teacher. He taught at various schools as well as held various commercial courses. At present, he lectures on Cryptology at the Charles University in Prague. Nowadays, he is an employee of Siemens.

Chapter 1 introduces basic DNS concepts, such as domains and subdomains, domain naming syntax, reverse domains, zones, queries, resolvers, name servers, forwarder servers. Chapter 2 explains the DNS protocol, focusing on DNS query. The chapter makes use of several examples of DNS client-server communication. Including an example of a non-existent RR query and its answer, communication with a root server, and TCP and UDP DNS quires. Chapter 3 describes extension to the DNS protocol, including DNS Update, DNS Notify, Incremental Zone Transfer, Negative caching, DNS IPv6 Extension, DNSsec, and TSIG. Chapter 4 discusses name server implementations, focusing on Bind, versions 4, 8, and 9. The use and configuration of the program named is explained in detail. The chapter also discusses the Windows 2000 implementation. Chapter 5 covers DNS tuning and administration and tools, such as namedcheckconf, named-checkzone, nslookup, dnswalk, dig, and rndc. Chapter 6 focuses on DNS delegation from a primary to secondary servers. The process of domain registration is also explained in the chapter. Chapter 7 talks about the delegation and registration of reverse domains. The internet registry is the subject of Chapter 8. It covers the regional internet registry, division of the world between RIR and country codes, and RIPE database and its various objects. Chapter 9 shows how to configure DNS servers in closed intranets, i.e. networks that are not connected to the internet. It covers configuring a root name server on a separate server (BIND 4) and configuring a name server for the root domain. Chapter 10 covers sharing a DNS database between the Internet and intranet, as well as having separate servers. It also discusses installing name servers on firewalls.