Tag: DNS

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OpenDNS is adding a Singapore Datacenter

Good news for those of us in Asia using OpenDNS!

In their October 2010 newsletter, OpenDNS announced that later this year they will adding a new datacenter in Singapore to better serve OpenDNS customers in the Pacific Rim.

Since OpenDNS is anycasted, the new datacenter means faster DNS resolution and an overall faster Internet for OpenDNS users in Asia. If this is where you live, no changes on your end are needed to get the faster DNS resolution — your DNS requests will automatically begin routing through the new servers.

Existing and planned OpenDNS server locations are shown in the OpenDNS network map located here.

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Disable recursion in Bind

Running publically facing DNS servers is often necessary in order to allow Internet resolution of your domains and services but allowing 3rd party look ups of other people’s domains and services (recursion) can create unnecessary server load and potential security problems.

Disabling recursion in BIND is involves editing the BIND configuration file (usually /etc/named.conf) and including the following configuration:

// Version obscures your BIND version information which
// protects you against attackers probing known vulnerabilities.

version “[SECURED]”;

// Optional – disables all transfers –
// slaves allowed in zone clauses

allow-transfer {”none”;};

// Optional – disable all recursive queries

allow-recursion {”none”;};
recursion no;

Once you have secured your DNS configuration restart BIND (/etc/init.d/named restart) then test that recusion is disabled by clicking here and entering your DNS server/s IP address.