Bind Compatible DNS Query Logging

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Environment

SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11
SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10

Situation

How to turn on Bind compatible DNS query logging

Resolution

The command to toggle logging on and off is: rndc querylog

The logging will be sent to /var/opt/<xxxxxx>/log/named/named.run on OES and /var/log/messages on SLES.

For Example:

Turn on logging by typing rndc querylog at the console.

Typing rndc querylog again will turn it off.

Typing rndc querylog again will turn it on

Now with it turned on send a query to the DNS server. For example: bogus.com.

Turn logging off with another rndc querylog command.

After doing this test I looked in the /var/opt/<xxxxxx>/log/named/named.run file of a test server running OES2 SP3 and found the following:

13-Mar-2014 13:39:07.015 general: server: info: query logging is now on

13-Mar-2014 13:40:46.870 general: server: info: query logging is now off

13-Mar-2014 13:41:15.558 general: server: info: query logging is now on

13-Mar-2014 13:42:10.431 queries: query: info: client 151.155.213.242#33575: query: bogus.com IN A +

13-Mar-2014 13:45:18.179 general: server: info: query logging is now off

There are other things being logged to this log file.

To just see the queries in their own file you can do a simple grep command like the following:

grep -i "query:" /var/opt/<xxxxxx>/log/named/named.run >> dnsqueries.log

Then use vi or cat on the dnsqueries.log

Disclaimer

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