Alcatel Unleashed

Posted: **20 Sep 2006 09:52**

We are due to install OTUC (My Phone) R4.0 on Linux. Our client has created a separate voice vlan that has no access to any other vlan. Therefore OTUC cannot access the company's DNS server. Thus we need to install a DNS server package onto the OTUC and utilise that as the DNS server. I've never done this and I don't have the proper documentation to do it. Can anyone help?

Posted: **20 Sep 2006 11:39**

That is more Linux than OTUC. You should install the BIND DNS server package that is in the RH CD's and just register the OTUC Ip address.

From a tutorial in Web:

The DNS Server

Setting up your Linux box as a caching DNS server will (slightly) improve your netsurfing speed, because commonly used DNS addresses will get cached inside your network and not have to be retrieved from the outside.

If you are interesting in doing full blown DNS, there is a great deal of complexity to be learned. There is a DNS HOWTO available, and the book DNS and BIND is a good (and very comprehensive) paper reference.

In order for your client machines to take advantage of the caching server, they must be configured to use the Linux gateway as their primary DNS server. The DHCP directives given in section 3.2.2 are one way to accomplish this. If you are configuring your client computers by hand, you can change the DNS configurations in the same control tabs you used to set the IP address of the machine.

To install the DNS server, first install the bind RPM, then install the caching-nameserver RPM. At this point, you are almost ready.

As installed, the caching server will work fine, but if you know the IP addresses of the internet providers DNS servers you can improve performance slightly by editing the /etc/named.conf file and adding the following line after the directory line (where x.x.x.x and y.y.y.y are the primary and secondary DNS servers):

forwarders { x.x.x.x; y.y.y.y; };

This change makes your DNS server first query the ISPs DNS servers before traversing the internet in search of a given address. The ISPs servers often have a rich cache of DNS information and can provide a much faster answer than your server could.

The named daemon has had some security problems over the past 12 months, so it is very important that you have the latest version running, and make some changes to the default settings to enhance security.

Check your version of bind and make sure it is at least 8.2.2. Go to the Red Hat Updates or Mandrake Updates sites to check for the latest version.
Restrict access to your name server to just the local network by adding the line allow-query { 192.168.1/24; 127.0.0.1/32; }; to the /etc/named.conf file after the forwarders line.
Avoid running your name server as root. If your server is running as root, an exploit of the server will grant the exploiter root privledges. If you run the server as a powerless user, like nobody, you can lower the risk of a name server exploit. To run your name server as nobody, edit the /etc/rc.d/init.d/named file and change the line daemon named to daemon named -u nobody -g nobody.

Make sure your DNS server will start at boot time: chkconfig named on. Again, this ensures that the server will start in the usual runlevels (3 and 5) at boot time.

OK, now you can start your DNS server: /etc/rc.d/init.d/named start

Posted: **22 Sep 2006 03:10**

hi cavagnaro, thanks for your reply. I tried setting up the DNS but I did not succeed. I am not much of a Linux expert, so I think i'll struggle here. What i need to do is a simple DNS setup. To put you in the picture; our client is in a huge block and there is only 1 Alcatel Oxe switch serving many different companies. Hence each company has it's own vlan and cannot cross over to other company's vlans. With OTUC installed, each company having 4980 will need to access the "voice" vlan for which a DNS server does not exist. That is why i need to setup the DNS server on OTUC. Any ideas?

Posted: **22 Sep 2006 03:32**

Hum, ok, if so huge company why they don't have a dns server? what ever.
Why don't you install another linux box that already has a dns server embedded, easy to use, like http://www.freesco.org/ and old pentium II PC can easily do the job. I have one installed at my lab and works nice.

Now consider that OTUC needs the DNS server because Tomcat works with it, exactly why....don't know yet. But it does.

Now in your user's pc just modify the hosts file and add the otuc name (as in the dns server) and that is all. Your users will be able to use OTUC without problems.

Still...why a company that has a big OXE and a OTUC doesn't have a domain? Lol, well...it happens