Configuring BIND using Webmin

In my efforts to set up a DNS server properly, with a zone for my own local domain, I have found that Webmin is quite useful, or rather the module for maintaining the BIND configuration (package webmin-bind).

I was getting initially confused by zone files, and where the webmin module is handy is getting the file started, and probably avoiding a number of commmon syntax problems. Also, if you need to update the zone configuration that is also very easy.

However, I find that in this case the module could be a little more helpful in describing what it's doing. In general Webmin modules assume a lot of knowledge about configuration parameters with little description about what they actually do. For inexperienced users, some help on each configuration page would be beneficial, while experienced users could just turn it off. Also, for actually setting things up, a wizard-like process could be set up where the user is guided through a task over several pages. Aside from the ease-of-use element, such an arrangement may help avoid errors in configuration even for experienced administrators, and that would be particularly useful for something as fiddly as BIND.

Incidentally, I did a quick search to see if there were some other tools for configuring BIND via web interface and found PHP Bind on sourceforge - which is unfortunately just a PHP class that hasn't been updated since December 2000. More promising is this class, and there is also a sample application available on the page. Overall, it seems that there aren't really any other tools to help administer BIND that I can find.