DNS server software for Linux

Pi-hole is a Linux network-level advertisement and Internet tracker blocking application which acts as a DNS sinkhole and optionally a DHCP server, intended for use on a private network. It is designed for low-power embedded devices with network capability, such as the Raspberry Pi, but can be installed on almost any Linux system. As well as importing externally prepared blocklists, Pi-hole can be configured to block specific websites or apply parental controls.

dnsmasq is free software providing Domain Name System (DNS) caching, a Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) server, router advertisement and network boot features, intended for small computer networks.

In Internet computing, NSD (for "name server daemon") is an open-source Domain Name System (DNS) server. It was developed by NLnet Labs of Amsterdam in cooperation with the RIPE NCC, from scratch as an authoritative name server (i.e., not implementing the recursive caching function by design). The intention of this development is to add variance to the "gene pool" of DNS implementations used by higher level name servers and thus increase the resilience of DNS against software flaws or exploits.

PowerDNS is a software project providing a DNS authoritative server, recursor and proxy. It is written in C++ and licensed under the GPL. It runs on most Unix derivatives. PowerDNS features a large number of different backends ranging from simple BIND style zonefiles to relational databases and load balancing/failover algorithms.

DNS server

The djbdns software package is a DNS implementation. It was created by Daniel J. Bernstein in response to his frustrations with repeated security holes in the widely used BIND DNS software. As a challenge, Bernstein offered a $1000 prize for the first person to find a security hole in djbdns, which was awarded in March 2009 to Matthew Dempsky.