Chapter List

            Preface

1    Background
2    How does DNS Work ?
3    Where do I Start ?
4    Setting up BIND
5    DNS and Electronic Mail
6    Configuring Hosts
7    Maintaining BIND
8    Growing Your Domain
9    Parenting
10  Advanced Features and Security
11  nslookup
12  Reading BIND Debugging Output
13  Troubleshooting DNS and BIND
14  Programming with the Resolver and Name Server
15  Miscellaneous

        A  DNS Message Format and Resource Records
        B  Compiling and Installing BIND on a Sun
        C  Top Level Domains
        D  Domain Registration Form
        E  in-addr.arpa Registration Form
        F  BIND Name Server and Resolver Statements

       DNS and BIND are very much part of the things that make the internet work in the way that it does.  DNS and BIND third edition sets out to explain some basic ideas and takes the reader through the first and later stages of configuration.  Anyone who has read this book should be able to move on to more complex problems.

Review

DNS and BIND configuration are known throughout the world of Unix to be the most difficult problem that an administrator will ever come across.  Reading books like DNS and BIND are a necessary part of the world of the administrator.  Learning new things is a requirement and not a luxury.  Since this book was published BIND 9 has come along and new security risks and holes have been found.  On the back of the book there is a list of topics that are included........
 

• What DNS does, how it works, and when you need to use it
• How to find your own place in the internet's name space
• Setting up name servers
• Using MX records to route mail
• Configuring hosts to use DNS name servers
• Subdividing domains (parenting)
• Securing your name server: restricting who can query your server, preventing unauthorised zone transfers, avoiding bogus name servers, etc
• Mapping one name to several servers for load sharing
• Troubleshooting: using nslookup, reading debugging output, common problems
• DNS programming using the resolver library and Perl's Net::DNS module

Chapter one gives a very useful and short introduction to the internet and how it works.  Throughout the book the chapters start with quotes from Alice in Wonderland.   Perhaps you get that feeling that someone is in the room with you ?  Or perhaps they are just inside your machine ?  All BIND users feel that way.  The second chapter gives an explanation of how DNS works.  This is of great help for those of us who are not yet computer literate.

The third chapter is called "Where do I start".  I've heard more than one experienced system administrator say that on our own ShefLUG discussion list.  So, if they're confused what chance have you got ?  Asking where do I start and then spending some money on this book is probably one of the best things that you can do.  Setting up BIND is covered in chapter four followed by DNS and electronic mail in chapter five.  Configuring hosts which is explained at chapter six isn't the kind of thing that you can normally get from experienced technical people.  They assume that you know it already.  So, it's a useful chapter to have around if you haven't done hosts before.  Maintaining BIND at chapter seven is actually much easier than it used to be.  With old fashioned traditional Unix of which Open BSD is a good example it was a pain in the rear end and a half to either configure or maintain.  With present day RPM or DEB packages it couldn't be easier.  However, you still need one eye to the rearward sails at the same time as you look over the bow to the horizon.   That's why we still needs books that are all about BIND.

Growing your own domain at chapter eight is a bit like the sort of understatement that you normally find in England.  It gives a few hints at the kind of things that you should be doing.  Kind of thing that most NT4 administrators should have read five years ago.  Parenting at chapter nine is all about sub domains.  It makes the point that you will have to make up your own mind about when to do this.

Chapter ten about advanced features and security is a bit too far out of date even for BIND 9 users.  Most BIND users who can read are extremely paranoid anyway.  However, if you don't know and you read this chapter you will begin to wake up to the idea that you might have missed something ?

The later chapters give some useful info about configuration and troubleshooting that you might not find somewhere else.

The insects shown on the front cover of DNS and BIND are grasshoppers and not glasshoppers.  It does help if you are not drinking any beer when you configure BIND or DNS.  Speaking from experience that is.  Comments like "Ah glasshopper you are having a problem" are not often heard.

Colophon

"The insects featured on the cover of DNS and BIND are grasshoppers.  Grasshoppers are found all over the globe.  Of over 5000 species, 100 different grasshopper species are found in North America.  Grasshoppers are greenish-brown, and range in length from a half inch to four inches, with wingspans of up to six inches.  Their bodies are divided into three sections: the head, thorax, and abdomen, with three pairs of legs and two pairs of wings.

Male grasshoppers use their hind legs and forewings to produce a "chirping" sound.  Their hind legs have a ridge of small pegs that are rubbed across a hardened vein in the forewing, causing an audible vibration much like a bow being drawn across a string.

Grasshoppers are major crop pests, particularly when they collect in swarms.  A single grasshopper can consume 30mg of food a day.   In collections of 50 or more grasshoppers per square yard - a density often reached during grasshopper outbreaks - grasshoppers consume as much as a cow would per acre.  In addition to consuming foliage, grasshoppers damage plants by attacking them at vulnerable points and causing the stems to break off. "

O'Reilly like to breathe personality and life into potentially dry subjects.
 

Review by Richard Ibbotson