Here’s a manual to speed up your web browsing by caching dns to your hard drive in ubuntu.
First install pdnsd, simply use apt-get by issuing the following command in an Ubuntu
Linux terminal window:
sudo apt-get install pdnsd resolvconf
As I mentioned, this will cache the results of DNS lookups to your hard drive and therefore
improve your web surfing speed. As a side not, don’t omit the "resolveconf" part (above).
If you omit it, then you may run into problems when different applications/programs are trying
to access (or change) the configuration file (found at /etc/resolv.conf).
After the install is complete (it should be fast), edit that configuration file by issuing this
terminal command:
sudo gedit /etc/pdnsd.conf
One of the significant change I made is:
label = "OpenDNS";
ip=208.67.222.222,208.67.220.220;
To compare, here is what my complete edited pdnsd.conf file contains:
global {
perm_cache=512;
cache_dir="/var/cache/pdnsd";
max_ttl=604800;
run_as="pdnsd";
paranoid=on;
# next setting allows ppp/ip-up update the name servers — ABa / 20040213
status_ctl=on;
server_port=53;
server_ip="127.0.0.1";
}
#Edit these to be your own servers if wished:
server {
label = "OpenDNS";
ip=208.67.222.222,208.67.220.220;
proxy_only=on;
timeout=10;
}
# if you installed resolvconf, and status_ctl=on
server {
label="resolvconf";
}
source {
ttl=86400;
owner="localhost.";
# serve_aliases=on;
file="/etc/hosts";
After saving your changes, you’ll need to restart the server by issuing this
terminal command:
sudo /etc/init.d/pdnsd restart
If you get a message that pdnsd cant be restarted then type in terminal :
sudo gedit /etc/rc.local and add : pdnsd -d at the end of the file and then
reboot. pdnsd will started uppon boot.
Then of course, test that everything is working. I used the command:
dig n00bsonubuntu.com
and here’s the result:
n00b@your-desktop:~$ dig n00bsonubuntu.com
; <<>> DiG 9.5.1-P2 <<>> n00bsonubuntu.com
;; global options: printcmd
;; Got answer:
;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 19841
;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 1, AUTHORITY: 0, ADDITIONAL: 0
;; QUESTION SECTION:
;n00bsonubuntu.com. IN A
;; ANSWER SECTION:
n00bsonubuntu.com. 9094 IN A 195.47.247.177
;; Query time: 9 msec
;; SERVER: 62.179.104.196#53(62.179.104.196)
;; WHEN: Tue Mar 24 19:04:10 2009
;; MSG SIZE rcvd: 45
n00b@your-desktop:~$
Enjoy!!