Configuring Forward and Reverse DNS Zones with BIND on Primary and Secondary Servers

Begin by disalbing SELinux and the firewall on both servers, then install BIND:

# On primary (192.168.32.168)
setenforce 0
systemctl stop firewalld
yum install bind -y

# On secondary (192.168.32.169)
setenforce 0
systemctl stop firewalld  # corrected typo from 'filewalld'
yum install bind -y

Configure static IP addresses using nmcli:

# Primary
nmcli c modify ens33 ipv4.method manual \
  ipv4.addresses '192.168.32.168/24' \
  ipv4.gateway '192.168.32.2' \
  ipv4.dns '192.168.32.168'
nmcli c reload && nmcli c up ens33

# Secondary
nmcli c modify ens33 ipv4.method manual \
  ipv4.addresses '192.168.32.169/24' \
  ipv4.gateway '192.168.32.2' \
  ipv4.dns '192.168.32.169'
nmcli c reload && nmcli c up ens33

On the primary server, edit /etc/named.conf to allow queries and zone transfers. In /etc/named.rfc1912.zones, define forward and reverse zones with allow-transfer { 192.168.32.169; };.

Create zone files in /var/named/:

cd /var/named
cp -a named.localhost openlab.com.zone
cp -a named.loopback 192.168.32.arpa

Populate openlab.com.zone for forward lookups (e.g., www IN A 192.168.32.168) and 192.168.32.arpa for reverse mapppings (e.g., 168 IN PTR www.openlab.com.). Ensure proper ownership (chown named:named *.zone *.arpa). Restart BIND:

systemctl restart named

On the secondary server, configure /etc/named.conf to listen on its IP. In /etc/named.rfc1912.zones, declare slave zones pointing to the primary:

zone "openlab.com" {
    type slave;
    file "slaves/openlab.com.zone";
    masters { 192.168.32.168; };
};

zone "32.168.192.in-addr.arpa" {
    type slave;
    file "slaves/192.168.32.arpa";
    masters { 192.168.32.168; };
};

Start BIND on the secondary:

systemctl start named

Verify synchronization by checking /var/named/slaves/ for transferred zone files. Test resolutino locally:

nslookup www.openlab.com 192.168.32.169
nslookup 192.168.32.168 192.168.32.169
dig @192.168.32.168 www.openlab.com

Tags: DNS Bind forward lookup reverse lookup zone transfer

Posted on Wed, 13 May 2026 20:55:06 +0000 by NogDog