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Hands-on Lab·LPIC-2

A DNS zone, proved from a client

DNS is one of the largest areas on the 202 paper. This guide installs BIND, writes an authoritative zone with an A record, a CNAME and an NS record, validates it with named-checkzone before restarting anything, and then answers every question from the client - which is the only way to know the service is genuinely reachable.

202: DNS Guide 8 of 29 Intermediate

The server at .78 runs BIND for the length of this page; the client at .80 runs no DNS software at all and is where every answer is checked from.
Server NameIP AddressOSRolesCPURAMHDD
LPIC2-A01192.168.0.78Ubuntu 26.04 LTSPrimary service host - BIND, Apache, Samba, Postfix. Topic 204 RAID runs on loop devices; this machine has no spare disk2 Core4 GB50 GB
LPIC2-C01192.168.0.80Ubuntu 26.04 LTSClient - resolves, mounts and connects, so every service is proven from a machine that is not running it2 Core4 GB50 GB

This guide includes

Use this for one of the largest areas on the 202 paper. This matters because a query answered on the server proves nothing - only the query from another machine proves the zone is really being served.

Before you start

  1. Start from nothing

  2. A zone file, and the SOA record that heads it

  3. Check the configuration before restarting anything

  4. What a broken zone looks like

  5. Listen where the client can reach it

  6. The query that proves nothing, and the one that proves everything

Official sources