DNS SECURITY: Your Network, Your Rules: Take Charge With Own DNS – Set up your own DNS nameserver using the same open-source tools that power today’s state-of-the-art public DNS nameservers.
Maintaining online privacy has become a top priority for Small Business. With the ever-present risk of data breaches and internet surveillance, it’s essential to have control over your network’s online activity. One often overlooked yet crucial aspect of this control is the way you resolve domain names on your devices.
Currently, relying on public DNS providers can compromise your online privacy, as they may track user activity and device usage. This raises essential questions about privacy and anonymity in the digital realm from malicious actors such as spammers, phishing attackers, and social engineers. Fortunately, there is a more private and cost-effective alternative to traditional services: self-hosted DNS nameservers.
In this post by Mahesh Veerabathiran a Principal Software Engineer at Oracle Cloud Infrastructure writing on DZone has reinforced the threat posed to us all by insecure DNS Servers. Moreover, he explains fully how to set up your own DNS nameserver, exploring various configurations to safeguard your online presence with confidence.
What Is a DNS Nameserver?
A DNS nameserver is a directory that maps internet services to their corresponding IP addresses. Since every internet service is assigned to one or more unique IP addresses, which change over time, using domain names like google.com makes it easier to remember and access these services. A DNS nameserver’s primary function is to translate domain names into IP addresses.
Why Do You Need Your Own DNS Nameserver?
There are numerous free DNS nameservers available worldwide, catering to various priorities, including consumer privacy. Some providers anonymize consumer data by not storing IP addresses on disk and not keeping them in memory for more than 24 hours. However, even with these measures, some data trends and volumes may be captured. Maintaining online privacy is crucial, but it shouldn’t come at a significant financial cost.
The goal of this article is to set up a DNS nameserver that resolves DNS queries for devices connected to your network. This setup allows you to resolve private zones, use free DNS nameservers for public zones occasionally, and respond from the cache when needed. By doing so, we achieve several benefits:
*We reduce the risk of exposing all devices in our network to the internet.
*We assign zone records or domains that are internal to our network.
*We minimize the number of DNS queries sent to the internet.
*While this DNS nameserver setup does not provide full privacy, it offers some level of protection stated above.
