Deny recursive DNS lookups in named (in newer or older versions of BIND)

For security reasons, it's recommended to disable recursive DNS lookups. Here is how:

Find out your named version

named -v

If your BIND version is at least 9.x then insert the following, between options { }:

        // Deny recursive lookups
        allow-query     { any; };
        allow-transfer  { none; };
        allow-recursion { localhost; };
        recursion yes;

So it looks like something like this:

//
// named.conf
//
// Provided by Red Hat bind package to configure the ISC BIND named(8) DNS
// server as a caching only nameserver (as a localhost DNS resolver only).
//
// See /usr/share/doc/bind*/sample/ for example named configuration files.
//

options {
        //listen-on port 53 { 127.0.0.1; };
        //listen-on-v6 port 53 { ::1; };
        directory       "/var/named";
        dump-file       "/var/named/data/cache_dump.db";
        statistics-file "/var/named/data/named_stats.txt";
        memstatistics-file "/var/named/data/named_mem_stats.txt";

        // Deny recursive lookups
        allow-query     { any; };
        allow-transfer  { none; };
        allow-recursion { localhost; };
        recursion yes;

        dnssec-enable yes;
        dnssec-validation yes;
        dnssec-lookaside auto;

        /* Path to ISC DLV key */
        bindkeys-file "/etc/named.iscdlv.key";

        managed-keys-directory "/var/named/dynamic";
};

logging {
        channel default_debug {
                file "data/named.run";
                severity dynamic;
        };
};

zone "." IN {
        type hint;
        file "named.ca";
};

include "/etc/named.rfc1912.zones";
include "/etc/named.root.key";

If your BIND version is 8.x then insert the following, between options { }:

        // Deny recursive lookups
        allow-recursion {localnets; };

So it looks something like this:

options {
        directory "/var/named";
        /*
         * If there is a firewall between you and nameservers you want
         * to talk to, you might need to uncomment the query-source
         * directive below.  Previous versions of BIND always asked
         * questions using port 53, but BIND 8.1 uses an unprivileged
         * port by default.
         */
        // query-source address * port 53;

        allow-transfer { none; };
        allow-recursion { localnets; };
        //listen-on-v6 { any; };
};

//
// a caching only nameserver config
//
controls {
        inet 127.0.0.1 allow { localhost; } keys { rndckey; };
};
zone "." IN {
        type hint;
        file "named.ca";
};

zone "localhost" IN {
        type master;
        file "localhost.zone";
        allow-update { none; };
};

zone "0.0.127.in-addr.arpa" IN {
        type master;
        file "named.local";
        allow-update { none; };
};

include "/etc/rndc.key";

Save your settings and restart BIND, and you should be all set.

service named restart