Summary: How to setup a linux DNS forwarding server.
Date: Around 2015
Refactor: 7 March 2025: Checked links and formatting.

This is the installation of bind on SLES 11 to create a forwarding DNS Server. This is installed on the proxy server since that is the only server which has internet access. The main DNS servers (which handle the internal domain) will then use this DNS server as their forwarding server.

Go to yast → Network Services → DNS Server. If this is the first time it will prompt you that bind needs to be installed. This is of course no problem since we use an update server, so follow the prompts to do so.

Go to yast → Network Services → DNS Server.

• Start-Up
  • Service start when booting
  • Open port in firewall
• Forwarders
  • Enter here the forwarders, make sure the internet DNS Servers are used first, and the internal DNS servers as last
• Basic Options
  • Set 'allow-query' to '{ any; }'

Note, if you forget this you'll get messages like this in your syslog:

named[20590]: client 10.10.10.100#18661: query (cache) 'www.nu.nl/A/IN' denied

• DNS Zones
  • Add here your internal zone and select 'forward' as type and click 'add'.
  • Select the created zone and click 'edit'.
  • In the 'New Forwarder IP Address' enter the internal DNS server, and click OK.

Click OK and you're done.