DNS caching locally ...

Philip Hallstrom freebsd at philip.pjkh.com
Fri Oct 7 10:42:36 PDT 2005


> I understand that it is possible to speed up surfing, especially using a
> wireless Internet connection, by using DNS caching locally. This has to
> do with enabling the named daemon or something, but I understand that
> there are some restrictions.
>
> Is there a simple recipe explaining how to do this?

The FreeBSD handbook has an example.  Just skip anything about setting up 
authoritive name servers.

That said, if all you need is caching (ie. you have upstream nameservers 
you can use), I'd suggest dnrd.  It's extremely easy to setup. It's in the 
ports.

http://dnrd.sourceforge.net/

What DNRD is

Domain Name Relay Daemon is a caching, forwarding DNS proxy server. Most 
useful on vpn or dialup firewalls but it is also a nice DNS cache for 
minor networks and workstations.
Features

     * Caching of DNS requests.
     * Support for backup DNS servers.
     * Uses random source port and random query ID's to prevent cache 
poisoning.
     * Support for simple routing - specify different forward DNS servers 
for different domains.
     * Force authorative or unauthorative answers for specified domains.
     * Share the /etc/hosts over the network.
     * Support for openbsd, freebsd and linux.
     * TCP support
     * DNS blacklist support



-philip


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