Unbound Docker for Raspberry Pi

You can use Unbound to resolve custom local names (e.g., laptop.local) by providing an a-records.conf file. This file supports both A records (forward resolution) and PTR records (reverse resolution).

Example a-records.conf format:

# A Record
local-data: "laptop.local. A 192.168.1.2"

# PTR Record
local-data-ptr: "192.168.1.2 laptop.local."

Mount this file to /opt/unbound/etc/unbound/a-records.conf when starting the container.

docker run \
--name=unbound-rpi \
--volume=$(pwd)/a-records.conf:/opt/unbound/etc/unbound/a-records.conf:ro \
--publish=53:53/udp \
--publish=53:53/tcp \
--restart=unless-stopped \
--detach=true \
mvance/unbound-rpi:latest

To completely bypass the default configuration and use your own unbound.conf, mount your configuration directory to /opt/unbound/etc/unbound/. This exposes all files in your local directory to the container. You can then use Unbound's include directive within your unbound.conf to segment your configuration (e.g., include: /opt/unbound/etc/unbound/local-zone-unbound.conf).

docker run --name=unbound-rpi \
--volume=/my-directory/unbound:/opt/unbound/etc/unbound/ \
--publish=53:53/tcp \
--publish=53:53/udp \
--restart=unless-stopped \
--detach=true \
mvance/unbound-rpi:latest

By default, the image uses Cloudflare DNS. To use your own upstream DNS servers, create a forward-records.conf file and mount it to /opt/unbound/etc/unbound/forward-records.conf as a read-only volume.

Example forward-records.conf content:

forward-zone:
  name: "."
  forward-addr: 192.168.0.1@53#home.local

docker run \
--name=my-unbound \
--volume=$(pwd)/forward-records.conf:/opt/unbound/etc/unbound/forward-records.conf:ro \
--publish=53:53/udp \
--publish=53:53/tcp \
--restart=unless-stopped \
--detach=true \
mvance/unbound-rpi:latest

If you want to keep the default configurations generated by the unbound.sh script but add your own files, mount a directory to /opt/unbound/etc/unbound/. This uses a wildcard include feature (available in version 1.13.0+) to load additional configuration files from that directory.

docker run --name=unbound-rpi \
--volume=/my-directory/unbound:/opt/unbound/etc/unbound/ \
--publish=53:53/tcp \
--publish=53:53/udp \
--restart=unless-stopped \
--detach=true \
mvance/unbound-rpi:latest

To run the standard Unbound DNS server on a Raspberry Pi using Docker, pull the mvance/unbound-rpi:latest image and run it with UDP and TCP ports 53 published. The container is configured to restart unless stopped.

docker pull mvance/unbound-rpi:latest

docker run \
--name=unbound-rpi \
--publish=53:53/udp \
--publish=53:53/tcp \
--restart=unless-stopped \
--detach=true \
mvance/unbound-rpi:latest

To provide SRV records for service discovery on your local network, create a srv-records.conf file and mount it to /opt/unbound/etc/unbound/srv-records.conf as a read-only volume.

Example srv-records.conf format:

# _service._proto.name. | TTL | class | SRV | priority | weight | port | target.
_etcd-server-ssl._tcp.domain.local.  86400 IN    SRV 0        10     2380 etcd-0.domain.local.

docker run \
--name my-unbound \
--volume=$(pwd)/srv-records.conf:/opt/unbound/etc/unbound/srv-records.conf:ro \
--publish=53:53/udp \
--publish=53:53/tcp \
--restart=unless-stopped \
--detach=true \
mvance/unbound-rpi:latest