Building BIND 9 on Windows has the following prerequisites: 1) You need to install Perl for Windows. ActivePerl (http://www.activestate.com/) and Strawberry Perl (http://www.strawberryperl.com) have both been tested and found to work. 2) libuv (https://libuv.org/) must be downloaded and built on the system on which you are building BIND 9. 3) OpenSSL (https://www.openssl.org) must be downloaded and built on the system on which you are building BIND 9. 4) If you wish to use the statistics channel, LibXML2 (ftp://xmlsoft.org/libxml2) must be downloaded and built on the system on which you are building BIND 9. 5) Optional external packages (not used by default) If you wish to use IP geolocation, GeoIP API and database must be downloaded, patched and built on the system on which you are building BIND 9. If you wish to use zlib/deflate on the statistics channel, zlib must be downloaded and built on the system on which you are building BIND 9. If you wish to use python tools, you need a python (version 2 or 3) interpreter with its standard libraries. If you wish to use readline, the readline library must be downloaded and built on the system on which you are building BIND 9. 6) The BIND 9 Installer (BINDInstall) includes a copy of the redistributable runtime object vcredist_x86.exe (or vcredist_x64.exe), which is included with Visual Studio and can be downloaded from Microsoft. This file must be in place prior to running Configure. Step 1: Download and build libuv Download and untar the libuv sources from https://libuv.org/ in the same directory in which you extracted the BIND 9 source: if BIND 9 is in \build\bind-9.16.9, for instance, libuv should be in \build\libuv-v1.40.0 (subject to version number changes). As of this writing, a patch (win32utils/libuv.diff) needs to be applied to the libuv source code in order for it to work with BIND on Windows. A pull request including the changes from this patch has been submitted to the libuv maintainers: https://github.com/libuv/libuv/pull/2653 Applying the win32utils/libuv.diff patch will no longer be necessary for libuv versions released after this pull request has been merged. On Windows, libuv is built using CMake. Here is a sample sequence of commands which builds a 64-bit shared libuv library: cd libuv-v1.40.0 mkdir build cd build cmake -DCMAKE_GENERATOR_PLATFORM=x64 .. cmake --build . --config Release Step 2: Download and build OpenSSL Download and untar the OpenSSL sources from https://www.openssl.org/ in the same directory in which you extracted the BIND 9 source: if BIND 9 is in \build\bind-9.16.0, for instance, OpenSSL should be in \build\openssl-1.1.1d (subject to version number changes). Note: Building OpenSSL requires that you install Perl and NASM as it uses these during its build process. The following commands work as of openssl-1.1.1d, but you should check the OpenSSL distribution to see if the build instructions in the INSTALL file have changed: (In an x64 Visual Studio Command Prompt window) cd openssl-1.1.1d perl Configure VC-WIN64A nmake Step 3: Download and build LibXML2 LibXML2 is required to use the statistics channel. If you wish to build BIND 9 without support for this feature, skip to step 4. Download and untar the libxml2 sources from ftp://xmlsoft.org/libxml2 in the same directory in which you extracted the BIND 9 source: if BIND 9 is in \build\bind-9.16.0, for instance, libxml2 should be in \build\libxml2-2.9.2 (subject to version number changes). Now build libxml2: cd libxml2-2.9.2\win32 cscript configure.js iconv=no nmake /f Makefile.msvc Step 4: Download and build zlib The statistics channel (aka internal HTTP server) can support zlib "deflate" compression method. If you don't want to this feature, skip to step 5. Download and untar the zlib sources from https://www.zlib.net in the same directory in which you extracted the BIND 9 source: if BIND 9 is in \build\bind-9.16.0, for instance, zlib should be in \build\zlib-1.2.11 (subject to version number changes). Read the win32\Makefile.msc for the Usage comment at the beginning of this file, then build the zlib1.dll DLL for the intended processor (i.e., win32 aka x86, or x64), e.g.: cd zlib-1.2.11 nmake /f win32\Makefile.msc Step 5: Download and build GeoIP Geographic ("geoip") ACLs require libGeoIP. If you wish to build BIND 9 without support for this feature, skip to step 6. The libGeoIP source code is available from: https://github.com/maxmind/geoip-api-c/releases. As of this writing, the current version of libGeoIP is 1.6.0. There is a known bug in this and all prior versions which prevents it from building a suitable DLL with thread support on Windows. You can apply the patch file bind9/win32utils/GeoIP.diff to address the problem. This patch has been submitted upstream, and will be included in future versions of libGeoIP. Step 6: Enable python tools Some python packages are required: argparse, ply, win32con and win32api. Last CPython's (version 2 or 3) from https://www.python.org include the pip package manager which can install missing packages, for instance for the 2 last packages 'pip install pypiwin32' downloads and installs win32con and win32api. Note when the python interpreter is in the command path and the required packages available the Configure script will detect them and add python tools to the BIND 9 build. To be used a python tool must be invoked with python (e.g., python dnssec-checkds.py ) as the shebang doesn't work on Windows. The isc package should be installed too, cf step 12. Unlike on Unix systems, this isc package uses the Registry to learn where BIND 9 was installed in step 11. Step 7: Download and build Readline The readline library adds command-line editing in nslookup and nsupdate. If you wish to build BIND 9 without support for this feature, skip to step 8. Because the original GNU source for the readline library has no WIN32 support, it will be necessary to download a version of the static readline library source that is ready to be built by Visual Studio. One such version is available at: http://gpsim.sourceforge.net/gpsimWin32/gpsimWin32.html#readline_lib Note: Windows command (cmd.exe) provides an integrated line editing feature so it is not recommended to configure bind with readline. Step 8: Make the redistributable runtime object available Check that the Microsoft redistributable object (vcredist_x86.exe or vcredist_x64.exe) is available to the build. The file may be placed in the directory in which the BIND 9 source was extracted (for instance, if BIND 9 is in \build\bind-9.16.0, the redistributable may be placed in \build\vcredist_x86.exe). Or, the path to the file can be specified via the VCREDIST_PATH environment variable, or via the "with-vcredist=PATH" option to the configuration script (see step 9). If none of these options is used, Configure will attempt to find the redistributable based on clues in the build environment. Step 9: Configuring the BIND 9 build From the command prompt, cd to the win32utils directory under the BIND 9 root: cd bind-9.16.0\win32utils In this directory, you can prepare the Windows build by running: perl Configure x64 This will set up all the files needed for building BIND 9 according to the given options. To see the available options, run: perl Configure help To remove all files generated by Configure, run: perl Configure clean Step 10: Building BIND 9 Building using 'nmake' or older versions of Visual Studio (e.g. VS 2005 or VS 2008) is no longer supported. Building with a version of Visual Studio newer than VS 2010 requires the solution to first be upgraded by running: devenv bind9.sln /upgrade If the build host only has Visual Studio Build Tools available and not a full Visual Studio installation, devenv.exe will not be present. In that case, the Configure invocation from step 9 must be extended with the following parameters set to values matching the Visual Studio Build Tools version used: with-tools-version with-platform-version with-platform-toolset Example use for a 64-bit Visual Studio 2017 build: perl Configure ^ with-tools-version=15.0 ^ with-platform-toolset=v141 ^ with-platform-version=10.0.17763.0 ^ ... x64 To build using the Visual Studio GUI in VS 2010 or newer: open the bind9.sln solution file; this will load the project files for all of the BIND 9 libraries and applications. Select "Build->Batch Build", click "Select All", then click "Build". To build using MSBuild in VS 2010 or newer: call MSBuild on the bind9.sln solution file: msbuild /t:Build /p:Configuration=Release bind9.sln msbuild /t:Build /p:Configuration=Debug bind9.sln Note: This mode does not support building for Windows XP. After this step this documentation applies to external or remote builds, i.e., is common with installation. Step 11: Install Installation is accomplished by running the BINDInstall program. All DLL's are copied to the Program Files area and all applications (including BINDInstall which may be necessary for uninstalling BIND 9) to the bin directory. If BIND 8 has previously been installed on the system it must be uninstalled first by running it's own BINDInstall program. The BIND 9 installer does not yet do this. Note: BINDInstall.exe requires the MFC (Microsoft Foundation Class). This is only distributed with non-free (i.e., not "Express") versions of Visual Studio. The other BIND 9 libraries and applications do not have this dependency. The very last version of BINDInstall uses two files created by the Configure perl script: - InstallFlags: 32/64 bit build, and/or should the redistributable object be run. - InstallFiles: the list of files to install with for each files 4 flags (destination, importance, check version and part of tools). The idea is to be able to use any BINDInstall.exe binary so a non-free version of Visual Studio is no longer required. Step 12: Python package install When BIND 9 was built with python support, the isc python package must be installed locally by: cd cd bin/python python setup.py install (replace 'python' by the path of your python interpreter if needed.) BIND 9 python tools should work with version 2 or 3, 32 or 64 bits. Please report bugs, whether in the process of building the application or in BIND 9 itself, at https://gitlab.isc.org/isc-projects/bind9.