When testing DNS for my throwaway test domain on mxtoolbox.com, it reported as follows: This is probably because I'm in the Phlippines and my server is configured to the Manila timezone, which is UTC+8. The problem is that some of the servers it's propagated to notice the same thing and therefore they drop it. Is there a way I can tell my bind to use Universal Time Zone without messing with the actual servers time and zone?
The serial number in a DNS SOA record is simply a number which must increment (by any numeric amount, not just "+1") for each version of the zone; using a YYYYMMDD## format is merely a convention, not a requirement. DNS servers won't reject your zone because the number you entered equates to a future date in the YYYYMMDD## format; they will reject your zone updates if they see you roll that number backwards. So from a DNS aspect, don't worry about it. But outside of that, it is quite worth having your server's time and timezone set correctly, and you should do so. Time sync will depend on the type of server you have, eg. a container will, and a VPS might, be sync'd from the host system. Some VPS and all bare-metal systems will need to be sync'd, eg. by installing an ntp client. How to set your system timezone varies depending on what OS you're running, which you did not mention. (A quick visit to your favorite search engine should mention how, and might be quicker than waiting for an answer here.)
Thanks for the reassurance Jesse. As for the local server time, it has NTP installed and before I installed ISPConfig, I set the timezone to Manila, since it's where most of our customers are and me too. It should make it easier to examine logs and email headers. At least, so I hope! Since I posted, I notice that propagation of the new nameservers is nearly complete, so I guess it was only mxtoolkit that considered it an error! Thanks again.
