Installing SmartDNS on NetBSD

SmartDNS is a DNS server that is designed to be fast and efficient, with support for modern DNS features like DNS-over-TLS and DNS-over-HTTPS. In this tutorial, we will guide you through the process of installing SmartDNS on NetBSD.

Prerequisites

Before we begin, make sure that you have the following prerequisites installed on your NetBSD system:

• Git
• pkgsrc

Step 1: Clone the smartdns repository

The first step is to clone the SmartDNS repository from GitHub. Open a terminal window and run the following command:

$ git clone https://github.com/pymumu/smartdns.git

This will create a directory called smartdns in your current working directory.

Step 2: Build and install SmartDNS

Once you have the source code, change into the smartdns/src directory and run the following command to build the software:

$ make

This will compile the source code and create an executable file named smartdns. Next, run the following command to install the SmartDNS binary and configuration files:

$ make install

This will install SmartDNS in /usr/local/sbin. You can verify that the installation was successful by running:

$ smartdns -h

This should display the help options for the SmartDNS command-line tool.

Step 3: Configure SmartDNS

Once you have installed SmartDNS, you need to configure it to work with your network. SmartDNS uses a configuration file located at /usr/local/etc/smartdns/smartdns.conf. You can edit this file to customize SmartDNS for your network.

Here is a basic configuration file that you can use:

server {
    nameserver 8.8.8.8 # Google DNS
    nameserver 8.8.4.4 # Google DNS
}

server {
    nameserver 1.1.1.1 # Cloudflare DNS
    nameserver 1.0.0.1 # Cloudflare DNS
}

This configuration file sets up SmartDNS to use Google DNS and Cloudflare DNS as upstream resolvers. You can modify this file to use the DNS servers of your choice.

Step 4: Start SmartDNS

Once you have configured SmartDNS, you can start it by running the following command:

$ smartdns -f -c /usr/local/etc/smartdns/smartdns.conf

This will start SmartDNS in the foreground and load your configuration file. You can verify that it is working correctly by querying it with nslookup or dig.

Conclusion

Congratulations, you have now installed and configured SmartDNS on your NetBSD system! SmartDNS is a powerful DNS server that can help to speed up your internet browsing experience and improve your network security. If you have any issues or questions, feel free to consult the SmartDNS documentation or seek help from the NetBSD community.

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