ISC BIND - enabling query statistics on CentOS

ISC BIND allows for export of statistics using a web UI. This artice can help you avoid a common pitfall on CentOS.


ISC BIND allows for export of statistics using a web UI.
This feature was added in ISC BIND 9.10. So as a first step on your server, check the version:

named -v

The output should look similar to this:

BIND 9.11.26-RedHat-9.11.26-6.el8 (Extended Support Version)

Next add some configuration to /etc/named/named.conf.local

statistics-channels {
inet 127.0.0.1 port 8053 allow { 127.0.0.1; };
};

Warning: If you try to restart ISC BIND now, you will see an error in the LOG saying:
bind couldn't allocate statistics channel 127.0.0.1#8053: permission denied
The warning is caused by SELinux not granting access to port 8053.
You can modify the SWLinux policy using the following command:

semanage port -a -t dns_port_t -p tcp 8053

Now restart the service:

systemctl restart named.service

Finally you will be able to access the statistics UI. Test it by using:

curl http://127.0.0.1:8083/xml