LINFO

BIND Definition



BIND (Berkeley Internet name domain) is the most commonly used DNS (domain name system) server on the Internet, and it is the defacto standard on Linux and other Unix-like operating systems.

DNS is the name resolution (i.e., translation) system that permits users to locate computers on a network by using their domain name rather than their IP addresses.

IP addresses, which form the basis of addressing on the Internet and most other networks, each can contain as many as 12 digits under the currently mainstream IPv4 addressing scheme (or as many as 32 hexadecimal digits under the next-generation IPv6 addressing scheme). It can be difficult for humans to remember such addresses, but it is relatively easy for them to remember domain names, which typically use alphabetic characters and consist of words, abbreviations or acronyms.

BIND provides an openly redistributable reference implementation of the major components of the DNS, including a DNS server (called named), a DNS resolver library and tools for verifying the proper operation of the DNS server. The resolver library is a collection of functions written in the C programming language that provides hostname-to-IP address and IP address-to-hostname lookup services.

BIND was originally written at University of California at Berkeley (UCB) as a graduate student project under a grant from the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Administration (DARPA). The acronym BIND originally stood for Berkeley Internet name daemon.

Versions 4.9 and 4.9.1 were released by Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) under the guidance of Paul Vixie in 1988. The BIND source code is now maintained by the Internet Systems Consortium, a non-profit organization that develops other free software for Internet use including DHCP (dynamic host configuration protocol), INN (InterNetNews) and NTP (network time protocol).

There are several alternative DNS implementations, including djbdns, MaraDNS, Microsoft DNS, NSD (name server daemon) and PowerDNS.






Created October 8, 2005.
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