Snow Leopard™ Server

Chapter 12. DNS Service

In This Chapter

• Introduction to DNS

• Planning DNS

• DNS setup and

• configuration

• Managing and

• monitoring DNS

Servers and client computers on a network use IP numbers to address and route the messages sent between them. DNS (Domain Name Service) is used to map those IP addresses (such as 10.0.1.2) to domain names (such as server.mycompany.com) as well as to provide a reverse lookup of hostnames for a given IP address.

While the primary purpose of DNS is to substitute IP address numbers with hostnames that are easier for humans to read and recall, Mac OS X Server and its applications also require a properly configured DNS infrastructure in place to function correctly.

Small organizations operating a single server or setting up their first Mac OS X Server can use the standard configuration to automatically set up DNS that relies on the ISP's existing DNS servers.

Note

For more on standard, workgroup, and advanced configuration, see Chapter 3.

However, many organizations might want to configure their own DNS, either because they can't use their ISP's DNS or because they choose not to because of factors such as wanting control over how DNS records changes, how updates are applied, or wanting to keep local DNS records exposed only within the company's private network and not shared publicly to the outside Internet.

This chapter briefly describes how DNS works, what's involved in planning the DNS, how the service is configured within Mac OS X Server, and how to maintain and monitor ...