System administration

Technitium – self host a DNS server for privacy and security

Technitium DNS Server is an authoritative as well as recursive DNS server that can be used for self hosting a DNS server for privacy and security.

It works out-of-the-box with no or minimal configuration and provides a user friendly web console accessible using any modern web browser.

This is free and open source software.

Features include:

  • Supports working as an authoritative as well as a recursive DNS server.
  • High performance DNS server based on async IO that can serve millions of requests per minute even on a commodity desktop PC hardware (load tested on Intel i7-8700 CPU with more than 100,000 request/second over Gigabit Ethernet).
  • Self host DNS-over-TLS, DNS-over-HTTPS, and DNS-over-QUIC DNS services on your network.
  • DNS-over-HTTPS implementation supports HTTP/1.1, HTTP/2, and HTTP/3 transport protocols.
  • Supports DNS over PROXY protocol version 1 and 2 for both UDP and TCP transports.
  • Use public DNS resolvers like Cloudflare, Google, Quad9, and AdGuard with DNS-over-TLS, DNS-over-HTTPS, or DNS-over-QUIC protocols as forwarders.
  • Support for latency based name server selection algorithm that works with concurrency feature for both recursive resolution and forwarders.
  • Advanced caching with features like serve stale, prefetching and auto prefetching.
  • Persistent caching feature that saves cache to disk when DNS server restarts.
  • DNS rebinding attack protection feature available with DNS Rebinding Protection App.
  • DNSSEC validation support with RSA & ECDSA algorithms for recursive resolver, forwarders, and conditional forwarders.
  • DNSSEC support for all supported DNS transport protocols including encrypted DNS protocols.
  • DANE TLSA [RFC 6698] record type support. This includes support for automatically generating the hash values using certificates in PEM format.
  • SVCB & HTTPS [draft-ietf-dnsop-svcb-https] record type support.
  • URI [RFC 7553] record type support.
  • SSHFP [RFC 4255] record type support.
  • CNAME cloaking feature to block domain names that resolve to CNAME which are blocked.
  • QNAME minimization support in recursive resolver [RFC 9156].
  • QNAME case randomization support for UDP transport protocol [draft-vixie-dnsext-dns0x20-00].
  • DNAME record [RFC 6672] support.
  • ANAME proprietary record support to allow using CNAME like feature at zone apex (CNAME flattening). Supports multiple ANAME records at both zone apex and sub domains.
  • APP proprietary record support that allows custom DNS Apps to directly handle DNS requests and return a custom DNS response based on any business logic.
  • Support for features like Split Horizon and Geolocation based responses using DNS Apps feature.
  • Support for REGEX based block lists with different block lists for different client IP addresses or subnet using Advanced Blocking DNS App.
  • Primary, Secondary, Stub, and Conditional Forwarder zone support.
  • Static stub zone support implemented in Conditional Forwarder zone to force a domain name to resolve via given name servers using NS records.
  • Supports Catalog Zones [RFC 9432].
  • Supports record aging where the records with expiry set are automatically removed from the zone.
  • Bulk conditional forwarding support using Advanced Forwarding DNS App.
  • DNSSEC signed zones support with RSA & ECDSA algorithms.
  • DNSSEC support for both NSEC and NSEC3.
  • Zone transfer with AXFR and IXFR [RFC 1995] and DNS NOTIFY [RFC 1996] support.
  • Zone transfer over TLS (XFR-over-TLS) [RFC 9103] support.
  • Zone transfer over QUIC (XFR-over-QUIC) [RFC 9250] support.
  • Support for zone validation using ZONEMD records [RFC 8976] for Secondary zones.
  • Dynamic DNS Updates [RFC 2136] support with security policy.
  • Secret key transaction authentication (TSIG) [RFC 8945] support for zone transfers.
  • EDNS(0) [RFC6891] support.
  • EDNS Client Subnet (ECS) [RFC 7871] support for recursive resolution and forwarding.
  • Extended DNS Errors [RFC 8914] support.
  • DNS64 function [RFC 6147] support for use by IPv6 only clients using the DNS64 App.
  • Support to host DNSBL / RBL block lists [RFC 5782].
  • Multi-user role based access with non-expiring API token support.
  • Self host your domain names on your own DNS server.
  • Wildcard sub domain support.
  • Enable/disable zones and records to allow testing with ease.
  • Built-in DNS Client with option to import responses to local zone.
  • Supports out-of-order DNS request processing for DNS-over-TCP and DNS-over-TLS protocols [RFC 7766].
  • Built-in DHCP Server that can work for multiple networks.
  • IPv6 support in DNS server core.
  • HTTP & SOCKS5 proxy support which can be configured to route DNS over Tor Network or use
  • Cloudflare’s hidden DNS resolver.
  • Web console portal for easy configuration using any web browser.
  • Built in HTTP API to allow 3rd party apps to control and configure the DNS server.
  • Built-in system logging and query logging.
  • Cross-platform support – runs under Linux, Raspberry Pi, macOS, and Windows.

Website: github.com/TechnitiumSoftware/DnsServer
Support:
Developer: Technitium
License: GNU General Public License v3.0

Technitium is written in C#. Learn C# with our recommended free books and free tutorials.

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