Setup your compute instance, choose Ubuntu standard 20.04 which is also in the free tier:

Switch to root:

sudo su -

Install Bind:

apt install bind9

Confirm Bind9 service is running:

systemctl status named

Install netstat, and confirm Bind9 service is listening:

apt install net-tools
netstat -lnp | more

Allow port 53 tcp/udp through the local firewall:

sudo iptables -I INPUT 6 -m state --state NEW -p tcp --dport 53 -j ACCEPT
sudo iptables -I INPUT 6 -m state --state NEW -p udp --dport 53 -j ACCEPT

Save the firewall rules:

sudo netfilter-persistent save

Next you will need to edit the named.conf.options

sudo nano /etc/bind/named.conf.options

Below is example configuration

acl "trusted" {
        localhost;          # localhost
        192.0.2.0/24;       # Network
        192.168.1.10;       # Single IP
};
options {
    listen-on port 53 {
        any;
        };
//  listen-on-v6 port 53 {
//      any;
//      };
        directory "/var/cache/bind";
        statistics-file "/var/cache/bind/named.stats";
        zone-statistics yes;
        version "Not Currently Available";
        empty-zones-enable no;
        notify no;
        dnssec-validation yes;
        auth-nxdomain no;    # conform to RFC1035
        allow-recursion { trusted; };        # enables recursive queries
        allow-query { trusted; };  # only allows access list to perform dns queries
        allow-transfer { none; };      # disable zone transfers by default
};

After you customize and save the above, check your config:

sudo named-checkconf

If everything looks good then restart bind

sudo service bind9 restart

You will now setup two Ingress rules one for TCP and one for UDP.

For the example I left the source CIDR 0.0.0.0/0 but you should limit to just your own network.

That’s it now you have your own private DNS server in the cloud, which performs lookups directly without using any public DNS servers.