CCNA Labs DNS Server Configuration on GNS3 and Packet Tracer

This is a continuation of Our CCNA Labs on GNS3 series. Last we configured SSH and Telnet Access Lab. The topologies shown here can be implemented on Cisco Packet Tracer as well.

Domain Name Service is what resolve hostnames to IP addresses. When you have DNS server running on your network, you don’t have to type the IP address of the host you want to connect to or ping as long as a hostname is set. You just type the hostname, Internet name or Fully qualified domain name(fqdn) and DNS server work out the rest for you. DNS Server listens on UDP port 53.

We’ll use topology shown below to setup DNS server. R1 will use R2 as DNS server to make DNS resolutions.

First, let’s begin with R1. We’ll setup hostname and IP related information.

R1 ip Configurations:

enable
configure terminal
hostname R1
interface e0/0
ip address 10.10.10.1 255.255.255.0
no shut
do wr 
end

R2 IP and Hostname Configurations

enable
config t
hostaname R2
int e0/0
ip address 10.10.10.2 255.255.255.0
no shut
do wr
end

Setting up R2 as DNS Server

config t
ip dns server
ip host loopback.R2.com 2.2.2.2

We mapped loopback.R2.com to ip address 2.2.2.2. Currently, we don’t have 2.2.2.2, we could create loopback interface on R2 and assign ip 2.2.2.2

interface loopback 1
ip address 2.2.2.2 255.255.255.255
end

Let’s verify that loopback interface we just created is working.This will show us that the hostname correctly setup locally on R2.

ping loopback.R2.com

Now it’s time to setup R1 to resolve hostnames using R2.On R1 type;

config terminal 
ip domain lookup
ip name-server 10.10.10.2

Set R1 to use R2 as the default gateway to get to the loopback interface on R2. So that after R1 resolve loopback.R2.com, it can reach 2.2.2.2 through its default route (R2).

on R1 type:

config t
ip route 0.0.0.0  0.0.0.0 10.10.10.2
end

This tells our router that to get to any network not in its routing table, it’s next hop is 10.10.10.2 which is our router R2.
We can turn on DNS udp port debug command so that we can see what’s going on on R1.