ABSTRACT
This chapter examines how to install, configure, and run two very important types of Internet software servers: a domain name server and a Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) server. It explores the BIND program for the former and Internet Systems Consortium (ISC) DHCP server for the latter. BIND is the official name for the open-source Domain Name System (DNS) software server found running on most Unix/Linux systems. BIND's main configuration file is called named.conf. named.conf contains two types of items: directives and comments. One can manage BIND through the configuration file and by starting, stopping, or restarting the service. However, BIND comes with a very convenient utility called rndc, which is a command line tool. One can use rndc to manage a BIND server from either the local host or a remote host. For security purposes, rndc uses a secret key to communicate with the BIND server over the network.
