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Is Bind9 necessary for a VPS?
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Is Bind9 necessary for a VPS?

netbearnetbear Member
edited January 2012 in General

I got my my first VPS (512 MB Ram, Debian 6 - 32 bit box) & trying to setup things on my own through tutorials, as I don't know anything abt Linux.

After doing a apt-get update, many packages have been installed - of which i find BIND9 occupying more than 40% of RAM.

I have installed nginx as webserver & have added the VPS IP as A record in my domain & it is resolving to the nginx welcome page.So i hope the server is working good. (nameservers have not been changed & they remain as Godaddy parking NS)

Now, I want to know - Is the BIND9 necessary to be running?What is it for?

Comments

  • It is a name server. And since you are using godaddy's name servers and not your own - you can safely apt-get remove --purge bind9

  • BIND is a DNS server. You'd only need it if you wanted to host your own nameserver.

  • MiniVZMiniVZ Member
    edited January 2012

    Bind9 is only necessary if you want to use your VPS as Domain Name Server.

    Just stop the Bind9 service and you will know if you need it.

  • @netbear said: Is the BIND9 necessary to be running?

    You may want to contact your host before doing anything. Your VPS will need to have access to nameservers else it won't be able to find anything on the net. Your provider may provide ones for you to use and you'll need that information.

    The nameservers you're looking at with GioDaddy just tell other computers and servers where your domain is. You'll need ones for your VPS to use as well.

  • netbearnetbear Member
    edited January 2012

    @drmike said: You may want to contact your host before doing anything. Your VPS will need to have access to nameservers else it won't be able to find anything on the net. Your provider may provide ones for you to use and you'll need that information.

    But i have created a A record in my domain control panel & the domain name resolves to the server.So there is no problem of VPS not able to find the server.

    @lbft said: BIND is a DNS server. You'd only need it if you wanted to host your own nameserver.

    Does having my own nameserver have any benefits?I have alsready specified the IP to the domain.Im planning to have only 1 blog on this VPS & there wont be anyone to share it.

  • drmikedrmike Member
    edited January 2012

    @netbear said: But i have created a A record in my domain control panel & the domain name resolves to the server.So there is no problem of VPS not able to find the server.

    Where are you doing that request from? If it's the VPS, it's using Bind. Turn off and remove bind, it won't have anything to do those requests with.

    Again, contact your provider as they may have their own nameservers for you to use.

  • @drmike said: Where are you doing that request from? If it's the VPS, it's using Bind. Turn off and remove bind, it won't have anything to do those requests with.

    The A record is created at Godaddy.com`s domain control panel.I just added it over there & boom, the domain name is resolving to my VPS.Seems simple & working.

    The VPS prov has not given any NS to work with.

  • drmikedrmike Member
    edited January 2012

    @netbear You're not understanding.

    Bind is there for your VPS to find other sites outward from the VPS. Not for others to find your VPS.

    Look at it this way.

    • Your the VPS sitting in your chair.
    • Point to your computer.
    • Congrats you found your computer.

    That's what Bind does.

    @netbear said: The VPS prov has not given any NS to work with.

    That's the problem. Again get with your host and see if they offer any nameservers that you can use. Else you're either going to have to use bind or other public nameservers out on the net.

  • There are two uses for DNS servers: hosting your own domain's DNS records for someone else to look up, and looking up the records of other domains (e.g. where to get your system updates from, or what the hostnames of your website visitors are).

    For hosting DNS, it sounds like you've got GoDaddy doing that for you. You don't need to run a DNS server for that.

    For looking up other records, I assumed your VPS would already have different name servers configured. You can check by running:

    cat /etc/resolv.conf
    

    As long as there are two IPs there that are different and neither of them is 127.0.0.1 or the IP of your VPS then you're fine. If there aren't, probably the easiest thing you can do is to use Google's public DNS servers, 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4. They provide setup instructions for Debian here.

  • japonjapon Member
    edited January 2012

    @netbear said: Is the BIND9 necessary to be running?

    Since you don't seem to want to host your domains directly and can use your registrars nameserver for that, you can get rid of bind. Check the /etc/resolv.conf and add nameserver 8.8.8.8 to it and you're fine.

    Edit: @lbft wrote it before.

  • Put another way, a resolver is built-in to the OS.

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