dns best practices

[Eivind Olsen]

> Is there a document for dns & bind best practices?
> I googled but found nothing valueable.

I am not aware of one. The various books have some information which could
be called "best practices".
There's some best practices RFCs, like:
Selection and Operation of Secondary DNS Servers
http://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc2182.txt
Domain Name System (DNS) IANA Considerations
http://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc5395.txt

(and probably others I've missed)

You didn't mention what you're planning to do with DNS & BIND, so it's a
bit tricky to say whether these apply to you or not. Running a resolving
nameserver is different from running for example a big dynamic DNS
service, etc.
Describe what you're planning to do, and it will be much easier to chip in
with some advice.

The general non-specific advice will probably apply in most/all cases though:
- run a somewhat recent version of BIND
- set up some logging, and watch the logs. Depending on your needs, you
might not (or perhaps you do?) need full query logging etc.
- remember that DNS is using both UDP and TCP port 53, and EDNS0 allows
for bigger UDP packets as well. And don't limit BIND to a specific port
for external (outbound) queries

Regards
Eivind Olsen