If you've ever managed network infrastructure for an Internet Service Provider (ISP) or a large corporate network, you know that DNS is the Achilles' heel. A slow DNS resolver frustrates thousands of users, and a compromised one leads to massive security breaches.
Most solutions out there require hours of manual Linux tuning, kernel adjustments, and painful dashboard setups. I wanted to solve this by creating something that deploys itself and optimizes its own performance based on the hardware it's running on.
So, I built Sentinel DNS — an open-source, high-performance DNS Firewall appliance built on top of Rocky Linux and Unbound.
Here is a look at what I built and how it works under the hood.
Instead of distributing just a script, I decided to remaster a full Linux ISO. The goal was to go from "bare metal" to "production-ready DNS Firewall" in less than 5 minutes, 100% offline.
