LDAPDNS is a small server that provides DNS services to your network. With DNS services, you can manage your hostnames in a central manner deprecating the tedious /etc/hosts updates every time a system is added/removed or has changed its host name.

The LDAPDNS package uses an LDAP service to store all DNS records (which is, simply explained, a line that contains the mapping between a hostname and an IP address). LDAP is a standard protocol to obtain information from a hierarchically represented knowledge base (directories). The most well-known LDAP service for Linux is OpenLDAP, a free LDAP implementation.

With this small guide at hand, you should be able to set up DNS services on your network with as little effort as possible.