I have a 'named' service running on a database server that is currently not being used. I am getting dozens of "network unreachable" errors in the messages log every day from named, presumably from people looking for common exploits on the box. Do I even need to be running the named service? Or is there something else I should do to cut down on log spam? This box will only be used to serve database queries. (Note: I know there is no real reason for this box to be directly connected to the internet, but that is the current configuration. So go ahead and tell me to put it behind a firewall, I already know that.)
SnapOverflow
Are you using this server to provide DNS services? (doesn't sound like it) If not, then you can surely shut down named.
If you don't need to resolve many hostnames on the server then you can just put the ones you need in the /etc/hosts file and disable named.
If your own IP address or 127.0.0.1 is not listed in /etc/resolv.conf, go ahead and shut it down.
And, yes, at a minimum configure iptables to block everything except authorized users. Yikes.