Update Your DNS Software (Linux)

Some of the information in this article is advanced material we make available as a courtesy. Please be advised that you are responsible for properly following the procedures below. Customer Support cannot assist with these topics.

We strongly encourage you to keep the DNS service BIND (Berkeley Internet Name Domain) updated with the latest version on your Dedicated Server.

Note to Red Hat 9 Customers If you are running a Virtual Private Server (VPS) with the Red hat 9 operating system, you will need to either upgrade to a more current operating system or download the source RPM from the BIND website for your version of BIND and compile it on your server.

To Update BIND

1. Connect to your server via SSH (more info).
2. Switch to the root user (more info).
3. Type cp /etc/sysconfig/named /etc/sysconfig/named.bak
4. Type yum clean all.
5. Type yum update bind.

The system will then proceed to update all the needed packages for you automatically.

If you are running Parallels Plesk Panel there are certain packages that can be installed that will interfere with Parallels Plesk Panel's functionality. If you have not already, please add the following line to your /etc/yum.conf to ensure that YUM does not update any packages that may break Parallels Plesk Panel.

Adding this line to the configuration file will prevent yum from ever being able to update these packages. This can cause issues in the future should you want to use yum to update anything listed as an exclude.

If you have never made any changes to your yum.conf file you can use the following procedure to make this update:

1. Connect to your server via SSH (more info).
2. Switch to the root user (more info).
3. Type echo "exclude=bind-chroot caching-nameserver" >> /etc/yum.conf

Once this is complete you can run the yum update statements at the top of the article. If you receive an error similar to the following:

or

You may need to remove bind-chroot and/or caching-nameserver from your server prior to upgrading. To do this you can do the following:

1. Connect to your server via SSH (more info).
2. Switch to the root user (more info).
3. Type yum -y remove bind-chroot caching-nameserver.

The removal of these packages can cause adverse effects on your server. You may need to restore the version of /etc/sysconfig/named that you backed up by using the following command:

This will install the most up to date version of BIND on your server. As the server administrator it will be your responsibility to determine whether or not a version update will cause any conflicts on your server. It is your responsibility to troubleshoot any issues that arise from performing this update.