Set up a DNS (Domain Name System) Server on Ubuntu or Debian with BIND

I recently was attempting to set up my local network to have a DNS server on it. I didn't want to have to continue to memorize all of the IP addresses on my network. I have a server running multiple virtual machines with VMware server and within those virtual operating systems I have each one assigned to multiple IP addresses.

So simplify my network I wanted to have a DNS server set up so that I could simply type a name like "website.tld" into my browser and it would point to one of my local web servers.

So I went about searching for a good guide on the Internet and I finally found one on YouTube. In the video the man sets up the server on Ubuntu but I was able to use the same guide to set it all up on one of my virtual Debian machines.

So below are the four videos that basically teach you how to set up the entire thing from configuring the BIND DNS server to configuring Linux and Debian computers to use the new DNS server. (Note: I recommended you click the YouTube logo in the player to watch the videos on YouTube, they are sort of hard to read here.)

One thing I would like to add that I did myself in the house is that I added 8.8.8.8 as a secondary DNS to all of my computers just in case my DNS server went down I could still use Google's primary DNS. If your router supports this through DHCP you could also configure your router to have out the DNS information along with the IP addresses.