[RndTbl] simple name service

[Adam Thompson]

> Make sure that your machines DNS settings go to the gateway, not
> your upstream providers DNS servers. If you've been setting the IP's
> statically you may have set it to something other than your gateway.
> In fact, you most likely have. You'll need to change
> /etc/resolv.conf if you have.
>
> I've used small bind installs on a fair number of systems now, and
> honestly, they are dirt simple. I'd suggest following a guide like
> that and posting to the list if you have an issue with anything
> specific. I know most people at MUUG who run DNS servers run Bind,
> or are very familiar with it, so we'll be able to help you out.
>
> Another option: If you know which MAC addresses go to which
> machines, you could setup a small DHCP server and have their
> addresses set in /etc/dhcpd.conf. This would allow you to change the
> IP range fairly easily, and also push custom DNS options down
> without having to touch each machine.

Following on Rob's suggestions, I would recommend combining those two 
functions into one by using dnsmasq 
(http://thekelleys.org.uk/dnsmasq/doc.html).  This software is used 
successfully on many small firewall distros and is in fact embedded in 
many home routers.
Its primary advantage is simplicity, compared to an integrated DNS+DHCP 
setup using BIND and DHCPD, but the fact that it also captures DHCP 
machine names might be a substantial benefit in Dan's situation.
It additionally uses /etc/hosts on the firewall/gateway as an additional 
source of names, so you don't have to configure multiple name databases.
Its big downside is the lack of flexibility - it's designed to solve a 
small handful of use cases, and it does those very well, but it can't do 
everything BIND or DHCPD can do.

On a related note, if you're interested in using commodity hardware to run 
a firewall/router/gateway/DNS server/DHCP server/proxy server, and your 
objective isn't specifically to learn Linux, I would recommend pfSense 
(www.pfsense.org), which is based on FreeBSD, and integrates all the 
common use cases into a fairly clean GUI.  (FYI, I'll likely be doing a 
presentation on pfSense at a meeting sometime this year.)

-Adam Thompson
 athompso at athompso.net