DNS and BIND is an explanation of the glorious Domain Name System (DNS). DNS takes familiar Internet network and machine names (such as "Amazon.co.uk") and converts them to Internet Protocol (IP) addresses (such as "208.35.218.15") that are meaningful to routers and so useful for identifying the machine you want to reach. What's amazing is, DNS enables someone in Germany to refer, by name, to a computer in Mongolia even if no one in Germany has ever accessed the distant machine before. It's pretty much self-configuring too: no human effort in Germany is necessary to make the Mongolian machine reachable by name. DNS and BIND explains how DNS works better than any other piece of documentation, printed or otherwise. The work of Paul Albitz and Cricket Liu, now in its fourth revision, has long been considered a classic among systems administrators and network architects, particularly those with a UNIX bent.

The fourth edition is mainly an update: The authors have added coverage of incremental and conditional zone transfer with BIND's new NOTIFY features, as well as of Transaction Signatures (TSIG) and DNS Security Extensions (DNSSEC). Sections on firewalling and DNS for IPv6 addresses have been expanded, and Albitz and Liu maintain their impeccable style that combines text and illustrative listings into an educational whole throughout. --David Wall

Topics covered: The Domain Name System (DNS) and how it's implemented by BIND (through versions 8.2.3 and 9.1.0), how to set up BIND, how to configure MX records for mail service, parent and child domains, NOTIFY, and DNS security.

This is the definitive book on the Domain Name System (DNS), the powerful scheme that facilitates the translation of English-like domain names (www.amazon.com) into computer-comprehensible Internet Protocol (IP) addresses (208.216.182.15). If you run a DNS server of any kind, particularly under Unix, you need to have this book on hand.

This book's early chapters give a view of DNS from high altitude, explaining basic concepts such as domains, name servers and name resolution. From there, the authors proceed on a more practical tack, presenting specific instructions for setting up your own domain and DNS server using BIND. The authors then tell you what to do as your domain grows and you need to add more machines, subdomains, and greater throughput capacity. They also talk a lot about nslookup and C programming with the various DNS and BIND libraries. Administrators will find the chapter on BIND debugging output particularly helpful. Here, the authors translate BIND's mysterious error messages and offer specific strategies for fixing and optimising the program. This edition covers BIND 8.1.2, but pays lots of attention to older versions that are still in wide use (4.8.3 and 4.9). The authors are careful to note differences among the versions. --David Wall, Amazon.com

2008-05-07 just one word "perfect"

Not being an IT pro, I am kind of average joe who when in need of something new to learn googles for it first or reads forums to get an impression of the scale. The task we had a year back was to install mail server in a small company network that never had any server before. And there you have it: one task pulls another and you need more knowledge, more books and more time to accomplish it. After all we had to get few things done for proper internetworking within our small business, something we have never had before: users authentication, files sharing, DNS resolution, mailing and most importantly backing up all that stuff. Not an easy thing when you first planned on running an e-mail server only and had no idea it would require fundamental re-structuring and investing.

Anyhow, I would like to say big big thank you to authors as the book helped us immensely in completing DNS and network design part almost in no time. There was no technology we came across that went on so smoothly. Clearly explained examples (tens of them), ready and working codes for most of the situations, plus great insight on probably all aspects of DNS integration into small business network - all that saved us time, hair and money as we tackled the tasks ourselves.

Recently, we have replaced our Exchange mail server with Solaris (Comm Suite) one and can't be happier. The book was in use again and again it was dead easy to configure and run BIND. Exactly as described. Very happy reader, would recommend to anyone.