Free DNS Server Software

Posted by Vivek Gite [Last updated: June 10, 2008]

Q. Can you tell me the name of free dns server software for my Linux server system?

A. There are many open source and free implementations of DNS server software exists. You can use following softwares on Linux / UNIX, Mac OS X or Windows system to setup your own DNS servers. The following free dns server are recommend by me for ease of use and security features. All of the following dns software are free for commercial or personal use.

BIND DNS Server Software

Berkeley Internet Name Domain (BIND) is the most commonly used DNS server on the Internet, especially on Linux / BSD and Unix-like systems. A new version of BIND (BIND 9) was written from scratch in part to address the architectural difficulties with auditing the earlier BIND code bases, and also to support DNSSEC (DNS Security Extensions). Other important features of BIND 9 include: TSIG, DNS notify, nsupdate, IPv6, rndc flush (remote name daemon control), views, multiprocessor support, and an improved portability architecture. It is commonly used on Linux systems. rndc uses a shared secret to provide encryption for local and remote terminals during each session. Bind works on Windows, Linux and UNIX computers.

Download BIND Free DNS Server Software For Windows, Linux, UNIX and Mac OS X

PowerDNS DNS Server Software

PowerDNS is a versatile DNS server, written in C++ and licensed under the GPL. It runs on most Linux, Unix derivatives and on Microsoft Windows. PowerDNS features a large number of different backends ranging from simple BIND style zonefiles to relational databases and load balancing/failover algorithms. A DNS recursor is also included as a separate program.

Download PowerDNS Free DNS Server Software For Windows, Linux, UNIX and Mac OS X

djbdns DNS Server Software

The djbdns software package is a simple and security-aware DNS implementation created by Daniel J. Bernstein due to his frustrations with repeated BIND security holes.