This how-to assumes a Debian-type Linux server.
1) Install BIND
$ sudo apt-get install bind9
2) Run BIND chrooted. For security reasons we want to run BIND chrooted so we have to do the following:
$ sudo /etc/init.d/bind9 stop
Edit the file /etc/default/bind9 so that the daemon will run as the unprivileged user bind, chrooted to /var/lib/named. Modify the line: OPTIONS=”-u bind” so that it reads OPTIONS=”-u bind -t /var/lib/named”:
$ sudo vi /etc/default/bind9
OPTIONS="-u bind -t /var/lib/named"
# Set RESOLVCONF=no to not run resolvconf
RESOLVCONF=yes
3) Create the necessary directories under /var/lib:
$ sudo mkdir -p /var/lib/named/etc
$ sudo mkdir /var/lib/named/dev
$ sudo mkdir -p /var/lib/named/var/cache/bind
$ sudo mkdir -p /var/lib/named/var/run/bind/run
4) Then move the config directory from /etc to /var/lib/named/etc:
$ sudo mv /etc/bind /var/lib/named/etc
5) Create a symlink to the new config directory from the old location (to avoid problems when bind gets updated in the future):
$ sudo ln -s /var/lib/named/etc/bind /etc/bind
6) Make null and random devices, and fix permissions of the directories:
$ sudo mknod /var/lib/named/dev/null c 1 3
$ sudo mknod /var/lib/named/dev/random c 1 8
$ sudo chmod 666 /var/lib/named/dev/null /var/lib/named/dev/random
$ sudo chown -R bind:bind /var/lib/named/var/*
$ sudo chown -R bind:bind /var/lib/named/etc/bind
7) We need to modify /etc/default/syslogd so that we can still get important messages logged to the system logs. Modify the line: SYSLOGD=”" so that it reads: SYSLOGD=”-a /var/lib/named/dev/log”:
$ sudo vi /etc/default/syslogd
## Top configuration file for syslogd
##
# Full documentation of possible arguments are found in the manpage
# syslogd(8).
#
#
# For remote UDP logging use SYSLOGD="-r"
#
SYSLOGD="-a /var/lib/named/dev/log"
9) Restart the logging daemon:
$ sudo /etc/init.d/sysklogd restart
10) Start up BIND, and check /var/log/syslog for errors:
$ sudo /etc/init.d/bind9 start
