I am geting close to rolling out my server at home I have red hat fedora core 6 apache mysql bind dns all running on a machine - I have already upgraded my cable internet to a business level service with a static IP addres. For linux management I am running webmin and for hosting management i am runing virtualmin. (cpanel like open source tools) I can see my default fedora home page when I type in my ip address from the outside. I need to finalize the setup of my dns server but I just don't know where to get the settings from. From what I understand (here is where I'm fuzzy) you point an address to your cable modem dns and an address to your webserver and somehow the webserver learn dns entries from the cable internet and the dns from the cable internet learns the names you have entered into your servers dns table? Am I somewhat on track with this or way out in space...? sincerely pj
I think you may be a little confused. You need to register your DNS server, you can do this usually with who you bought your domain names from. I register mine with Dotster. Once your DNS is registered and you register all your domain names to use that DNS then wheneve someone request your domain name your DNS server answers and tells them where the webserver with the website is for that domain name. "You may register or update a name server for domain names that you have registered with us. The name server will need both a host name and an IP address associated with it. Once you register the name server you will be able to use your name server for domain names registered with any registrar." This is quote given before registering the DNS server at dotster. Let me know if all this makes sense and I will check back tomorrow. Hope it helps.
this makes sense - I was way off on my thought process - don't most registrars require 2 name servers - in this case would one be theirs and one be my local dns server? sincerely pj
I assume your local DNS is authoritative for your domain. (Has an SOA record... Star Of Authority) You should have at least one slave to act as a backup should your DNS server be unavailable. There are free secondary DNS providers out there, like vcsweb or twisted4life, etc. You'd need to allow XFR (zone transfer) for the slave though in order for it to be able to upload your DNS record from your server.
I guess you can use your registrars DNS or the free ones mentioned. I haven't used either option so I can't help you there. DNS servers are not computationally demanding so if you have an old pentium 3 or something you throw up a DNS with windows server in about 1 hr (90% of the time is waiting to install win server). This would give you two DNS servers (i.e. ns1.domain.com and ns2.domain.com). ANother solution which is illegal is using two names for the same server ie. ns1 and ns2 point to the same server via 2 different ips - sort of short term solution. It really depends on what you plan on doing, hosting? Personal use? spamming!?!?!?!? Good luck with your setup
Another option is to download Posadis DNS server for windows. Really easy to use, and there's good documentation for it. Just google "posadis" for it.