Capabilites of bind DNS

I would say that I'm a noob when it comes to working with networks and setting up web pages. But I've never setup a DNS server. What are the capabilities of this DNS server. I understand what DNS does, but can I actually set a domain name and it will be referenced to my ip address. Sorry for the imcompatence, and thanks for any help that can be given.

Nick

 

It allows you to run your own DNS servers. Let's say you are hosting web sites for your customers, and in order to be able to register domains you are a reseller of a domain registrar. Most of these domain registrars offer something like "Managed DNS" which costs a little bit and uses the registrar's name servers.

Now whenever you register a new domain, you must specify name servers that should be responsible for the domain, so you can either buy "Managed DNS", or you specify your own DNS servers which saves you the money for "Managed DNS" (if you have hundreds of domains this can sum up...) and makes you independent because it's you who controls your name servers (imagine your registrar has problems with his DNS servers, or something in the "Managed DNS" web interface doesn't work, or you're allowed to make only 50 DNS changes per day but you want to move a server and have to update 200 domains at once or...)

With ISPConfig you can create DNS records, and whenever you register a new domain you can then specify your ISPConfig servers as authoritative name servers.
If you have two ISPConfig servers you can create the primary DNS records ("Master Records" in ISPConfig talk) on the first server, and on the second server you create secondary DNS records ("Slave Records") so that DNS is still available if one of these two servers fails.

 

Falko,

Thanks for the quick replay.

Ok, say that I would like to host my own websites and be able to change/add domains as I please. What would be the process that I would have to go through to be able to do this. Is there a company that I should deal with?

Nick

 

Ok, this is how I did it:
I register my domains with DirectI. They also offer "Managed DNS".

First, I registered a domain that I use for technical issues only, not for web sites or emails (hostmu.com). For that domain I bought "Managed DNS" and created the A records ns1 - ns6.hostmu.com.
Right now, I use ns5.hostmu.com as primary DNS server, ns6.hostmu.com as secondary DNS. Both run ISPConfig, and I create all records using ISPConfig.
Whenever I want to register a new domain, I create all needed DNS records (A records: www and mail, MX record: mail) before I register the domain. Then I go to DirectI and register the domain, and when I register it, the web interface allows me to put in up to four name servers, so I fill in ns5.hostmu.com and ns6.hostmu.com.
Voilà! That's it!

 

If abc.test1.com.tw (203.79.221.xxx) is located behind a firewall with port 53 already mapped to 192.168.1.30.
What IP addresses are you using for ISPConfig's A records:www and mail,MX record:mail?external IP (203.79.xxx.xxx) or internal IP(192.168.1.30)?

I am using abc.test1.com.tw as name server and already register the domain at rs.apol.com.tw. but when I create all needed DNS records (IP: 192.168.1.30) and try to register another new domain (test2.idv.tw) using abc.test1.com.tw as names server . The name server doesn't seem to work. All nslookup A record of www.test2.com.tw is pointing to 192.168.1.30. I can open the website www.test1.com.tw but not www.test2.com.tw.

 

But I had seen from some posts in this forum that if using IP Sharer as a firewall and gateway (191.168.1.1) ,I should use internal IP for all the DNS A Records. Since I have configured the gateway to forward my external IP to internal IP and Port 53 is not blocked.

 

This will only work inside your local network. Say you have configured DNS for the domain example.com so that it points to 192.168.0.100 (internal IP address), then you can use the DNS server inside your local network, because example.com will be resolved to 192.168.0.100. If someone outside your local network uses the DNS server and wants to access example.com, that won't work because example.com will still be resolved to 192.168.0.100 which is not a public IP address and therefore cannot be accessed from the outside.

 

Do I also have to use external IP address in ISPConfig under:
Management==>Server==>settings
or just use internal IP address for it and all the newly created websites?

The default ISPConfig's Servername is Server 1. Do I have to replace it with real hostname as same as stated in /etc/hostname or just use Server 1 as a reference only?

 

No, here you must use the internal IP addresses (the ones you see when you run

Code:

ifconfig

on the shell).

No, Server 1 is ok. It has nothing to do with the real hostname.

 

Virtual host?

How do you properly set up a client with all the complete features avaiblable including email server hosting?

I'm quite sure how to test the setup after I've followed the documentation for ISPConfig.

Like how do I point a registered domain name of my client to my ISPConfig server virtual webhosting?

 

In most cases the registrar of the domain provides a web interface for managing the DNS records (unless someone else is taking care of the DNS records).
In such a web interface you can change the IP addresses that the various domains/sub-domains point to.

 

I'm using zoneedit DNS Authority (Name Server) and it's pointing back to my home server (FDC 3) which is connected through the internet via ADSL modem using dynamic IP.

Now, if have two domain name setup in zoneedit, how will ISPConfig resolve the Domain Name and find the correct virtual host for each of the domain name? Hope it makes sense...

Sorry about this as I get confused on about this matter. I'm just trying to get the website displayed for a client that I created and access it from the internet using a registered domain name.

 

Thanks a lot for all the patience and guideness you guys offered to me. I finally get the correct resolution for ISPConfig settings and now all my managed websites can be resolved from remote computers.

 

All you have to do is point your domains to the correct IP address (your router's public IP address) and forward the right ports (21, 22, 25, 80, 81, ...) from your router to your ISPconfig server. The Apache will then now which page it should server when a request comes.

 

I don't have technical domain, can I do Suse 10 setup with IP as hostname? I also have "managed NS" can I point 2 domains' A and MX records to one IP? And can I turn off bind and still have different host for one domain ex, www and mail.domain.com resolve to different indexdirs
Finally do Yast updates (including kernel patch) come before or after ISPconfig install?

 

Then use localhost.localdomain as hostname. But I strongly recommend to buy a technical domain.

Sure.

Yes, if the authoritative nameservers for your domain is different from your ISPConfig server.

That doesn't matter.

 

http://www.dnsstuff.com/tools/lookup.ch?name=web-mania.com&type=ALL <IE>

How does this work when the nameservers are subdomains of its self

Different ips ?

 

So you have two separate servers running identical ISPConfig setups? I'm interested in doing a similar setup as I want to use my own servers as nameservers. How do you keep data synchronized on both servers? It would seem like if your client uploads to ftp.hisdomain.com the nameserver would resolve to one of the servers so they would be inconsistant. How'd you set that up?

Thanks.