Installation

Required build environment

GCC at least 4.1 is strictly required for atomic built-ins, but the latest available version is recommended. Another requirement is _GNU_SOURCE support, otherwise it adapts to the compiler available features.

LLVM clang compiler can be used as well. However, the compilation with enabled optimizations will take a long time, unless the --disable-fastparser configure option is given.

Knot DNS build system relies on these standard tools:

  • make
  • libtool
  • autoconf >= 2.65

Required libraries

Knot DNS requires few libraries to be compiled:

  • GnuTLS, at least 3.3
  • Jansson, at least 2.3
  • Userspace RCU, at least 0.5.4
  • libedit
  • lmdb (included)
  • libcap-ng, at least 0.6.4 (optional)
  • libidn (optional)
  • libsystemd (optional)
  • protobuf-c and fstrm (optional)

The LMDB library is required. It is included with the Knot DNS source code, however linking with the system library is preferred.

If the libcap-ng library is available, Knot DNS will take advantage of the POSIX 1003.1e capabilites(7) by sandboxing the exposed threads. Most rights are stripped from the exposed threads for security reasons.

The libidn library is a prerequisite for IDNA2003 (International Domain Names) support in Knot DNS utilities.

If the libsystemd library is available, the server will use systemd's startup notifications mechanism and journald for logging.

If the protobuf-c and fstrm libraries are available, the support for logging in Dnstap format will be included.

Installation from source code

You can find the source code for the latest release on www.knot-dns.cz. Alternatively, you can fetch the whole project from the git repository git://git.nic.cz/knot-dns.git.

After obtaining the source code, the compilation and installation is a quite straightforward process using autotools.

Configuring and generating Makefiles

If compiling from the git source, you need to bootstrap the ./configure file first:

$ autoreconf -i -f

In most cases, you can just run configure without any options:

$ ./configure

For all available configure options run:

$ ./configure --help

Compilation

After running ./configure you can compile Knot DNS by running make command, which will produce binaries and other related files:

$ make

Installation

When you have finished building Knot DNS, it's time to install the binaries and configuration files into the operation system hierarchy. You can do so by executing:

$ make install

When installing as a non-root user, you might have to gain elevated privileges by switching to root user, e.g. sudo make install or su -c 'make install'.

OS specific installation

Knot DNS might already be available in the destination operating system repository.

Debian Linux

Knot DNS is already available from Debian 7 (Wheezy) upwards. In addition to the official packages we also provide custom repository, which can be used by adding:

deb     http://deb.knot-dns.cz/debian/ <codename> main
deb-src http://deb.knot-dns.cz/debian/ <codename> main

to your /etc/apt/sources.list or into separate file in /etc/apt/sources.list.d/.

As an example, for Debian 8 (Jessie) the Knot DNS packages can be added by executing following command as the root user:

# cat >/etc/apt/sources.list.d/knot.list <<EOF
deb     http://deb.knot-dns.cz/debian/ jessie main
deb-src http://deb.knot-dns.cz/debian/ jessie main
EOF
# apt-get update
# apt-get install knot

Ubuntu Linux

Prepackaged version of Knot DNS can be found in Ubuntu from version 12.10 (Quantal Quetzal). In addition to the package included in the main archive, we provide Personal Package Archive (PPA) as an option in order to upgrade to the last stable version of Knot DNS or to install it on older versions of Ubuntu Linux.

Adding official PPA repository for Knot DNS

To start installing and using software from a Personal Package Archive, you first need to tell Ubuntu where to find the PPA:

$ sudo add-apt-repository ppa:cz.nic-labs/knot-dns
$ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo apt-get install knot

Running this sequence of commands will ensure that you will install Knot DNS on your system and keep it up-to-date in the future, when new versions are released.

Fedora Linux

The RPM packages for Knot DNS are available in official Fedora repositories since Fedora 18 (Spherical Cow). Search for the knot package in your package manager. To install the package using Yum, run the following command as the root user:

# yum install knot

Arch Linux

Knot DNS is available in the official package repository (AUR). To install the package, run:

# pacman -S knot

Gentoo Linux

Knot DNS is also available in the Gentoo package repository. However, you will probably need to unmask the package prior to starting the installation:

# emerge -a knot

FreeBSD

Knot DNS is in ports tree under dns/knot. To install the port, run:

# cd /usr/ports/dns/knot
# make install