Port 53 Open?

If I’m not using the NS services on a server, do I need to keep port 53 UDP (DNS) open?

And by not using, I mean I don’t have any domains with the their name server records pointed at the server.

Thanks

Hi xmmedia

Welcome to Iw forums

You can close port 53, as long as no website or domain name is using the dns of the server

If using a different NS/DNS, it should be fine and work normally on localhost access for internal dns

Many thanks

John

Great. Thanks

Hi @d2d4j

Does that means that if I’m not running any DNS on the server (all domains use external dns providers), besides closing the 53 port can I also fully disable/stop the DNS service from running on the server? Or even with no domains using it, IW still needs the DNS service running?

Thanks

Hi nqservices

Sorry for not been clear

If no dns services are been used (as in nameservers use) then you can close port 53 in full

You can stop dns services on all ip addresses except localhost (127.0.0.1), as localhost dns is used by Apache

I suppose you could stop localhost dns, and let it use host or external dns, but it takes longer

I hope that explains it better and dns does not add loading as such

Many thanks

John