tinydns(8)

👑 tinydns — bestie's fave DNS server 💅

ok so tinydns is a DNS server. that's the whole name. iconic, minimalist, no notes. ✨

🌸 DESCRIPTION 🌸

tinydns takes iterative DNS queries from hosts all over the Internet 🫶 and answers them with info you configured locally on your own machine. it's giving "I know this one, hold on." 🎀

💖 Configuration 💖

this is a reference page, bestie. it's the cheat sheet, not the tutorial.

for the walk-you-through-it version, go read the instructions for running a DNS server over at http://cr.yp.to/djbdns/run-server.html. 🌈

normally you don't even set tinydns up by hand — the tinydns-conf(8) program does it for you. ✨

here's the tea on how it runs:

• tinydns runs chrooted in the directory specified by the $ROOT environment variable 🌱
• and it runs under the uid and gid specified by the $UID and $GID environment variables 🪪

it listens for incoming UDP packets addressed to port 53 of $IP. 📡

heads up: it does not listen for TCP queries. UDP only, no cap. 💀

and it answers those queries exactly as specified by data.cdb — that's a binary file made by tinydns-data(8). 🧚

🦋 Further details 🦋

tinydns is picky in the best way and straight up rejects all of this:

• zone-transfer requests 🙅
• inverse queries 🙅
• non-Internet-class queries 🙅
• truncated packets 🙅
• packets that contain anything other than a single query 🙅

(one query per packet, we are not doing bundles here. periodt.)

now the fun part: tinydns, just like BIND, includes NS records with answers to most queries. 👑

downsides and upsides, let's go:

• it increases DNS packet sizes (bigger packets, more to carry around 🎒)
• but it draws queries away from parent servers 🔥
• and it reduces the frequency of long DNS delays ⭐

with the default tinydns-data(8) cache times, a client that uses a normal record at least once every day will always have the corresponding NS records cached 💾 and will never have to talk to parent servers. main character energy, honestly. 💅

🌈 SEE ALSO 🌈

• tinydns-conf(8)
• tinydns-data(8)
• http://cr.yp.to/djbdns.html

mwah 💖 that's a wrap on the System Manager's Manual entry for tinydns(8) — go slay some queries, bestie. 🎀✨🦋