UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

I am kind of a beginner in Unix. Our DNS server is on a Unix server running FreeBSD, and I just add a new Windows print server running Server 2003 R2 to the network. I am having trouble - I can Ping the IP address of the server but not the server name. I was informed that I would have to add an "A" record of the server on our DNS server. I just need a little help trying to add this record in FreeBSD.

Thanks

mj

It depends on the DNS server you are running.
If you are using BIND version 9 (these days this is the most common), it's fairly straightforward to add new servers but you'll need to find out if it's a synamic or static zone first, then either edit the zone file and send a SIGHUP to the named process (if it's static) or use nsupdate to tell it about the new address (A) record (if it's dynamic).

A somewhat more user-friendly option would be to install 'webmin' (google will find you a downloadable package of it) and then add the options 'b9ddns' module for BIND 9.

If you are running BIND 8 or BIND 4, it's just a matter of editing zones files, and updating the serial number.

So how would I find out which version of BIND we are running in FreeBSD? How would I edit the zone?

I'm pretty sure freeBSD doesn't run BIND (in any other mode than a DNS cache at least) by default. That means you'll have to go look at it.
Probably the quickest way would be to do this:

Code:

# ps auxw | grep named
root     25099  0.6  0.1 9952 9048 ?        S   Aug 10 529:57 /usr/local/sbin/named
# /usr/local/sbin/named -v

Then report back what it shows you.

If you're logged on the DNS server run "named -v" and it will show you the version. Else, if outside, you can run "dig @ns.you.com version.bind chaos txt" if this information is chosen to be disclosed.
Then edit the respective zone file, and restart the service. But if this is your first contact with bind, ask a colleague, or someone near you to assist, as the things can get messy.

Another popular name server is tinydns. Anyway, you can look for what startup scripts run when the machine starts to see what services it will bring up; I guess on *BSD it's still /etc/rc.d/* and /usr/local/etc/rc.d/* (see also Starting Services for some background).