What is named?

Question: I keep seeing the program called “named” running on my server. What is it?

Answer: Named is one of the DNS programs, also known as Bind, which is a free and open source DNS management system. Bind handles all of the DNS for your Linux server and is usually started at boot time and remains running as long as the server is on.

BIND stands for Berkeley Internet Name Domain and was originally created for BSD, although it now runs on most Linux distributions and other Unix-like operating systems. Named refers to the “name” program running as a daemon (or background program), represented by the letter “d”.

Many web hosting control panels have DNS support built in, so you will most likely not need to manipulate Bind from the command line. Nevetheless, it is still good to know something about using Bind, just in case something goes wrong.