apt-get update apt-get install bind9 Edit named.conf.options as usual. Edit named.conf.local and add zone zone "test.net" { type slave; file "db.test.net"; masters { 172.16.99.200; }; }; where 172.16.99.200 is the master DNS server. The above relative syntax of the file will be /var/cache/bind/*. If you want to specify a particular location such as... zone "test.net" { type slave; file "/etc/bind/zones/db.test.net"; masters { 172.16.99.200; }; }; ...then you may need to modify permissions as well as apparmour to allow writing to the directory. chown -R root:bind /etc/bind/zones chmod -R 770 /etc/bind/zones nano /etc/apparmor.d/usr.sbin.named add this line somewhere: /etc/bind/slave/* rw, /etc/init.d/bind9 restart on the slave and check the zone directory to see if populated. If not tail -f /var/log/syslog will help troubleshoot.