Understanding Nameservers

[pearance]

I need some clarification when it comes to implementing nameservers as a hosting provider. Now, I have a basic understanding of their role and how they work in general (mapping domain names to ip addresses).

 

I'll start with my setup/scenario:

 

Plesk - (dedicated company server - serving parent site via WHMCS)

ResellerClub - (domain registrar)

Cpanel/WHM - (shared server)

 

 

1. What would be the recommendation for a new hosting provider when it comes to name server(s)?

 

2. Do most who have limited resources use the BIND service on each WHM shared server itself? So if you have umpteen shared servers you would have umpteen name servers, as well?

 

2a. If so is it preferred/recommended to ultimately use completely separate/dedicated server(s) for DNS services for all shared servers? What is common?

 

3. If using the WHM shared server itself is the common practice, what are its pros and cons?

 

In short, whats your set up?

 

Thx in advance for all those who take the time to share.

 

Taine

Pearance

[pearance]

no one? (bump)

[runnetworks]

I had a problem with this and posted a similar question a week or so ago. I don't want dns hosted within my network. I would rather it be at eNom. The problem is that I can't change the dns hosts, only nameservers depending on which server the web site is provisioned on. This assumes that each web server is also a dns server.

 

I resorted to customizing the welcome email giving instructions on how to change the IP for each of the A and CNAME records.

 

I hope there is a template option for each server that configured eNom dns depending on which template is selected.

[brianoz]

If you use one host as the nameserver for all your shared-hosting hosts, you're making all your servers dependent on that one host. If that one host is down, all your sites go down - not good!

 

So I'd recommend using separate nameservers for each shared-hosting server, and ensuring they have "child" nameservers using explicit IPs at the registrar so they don't use any services from other servers.

[runnetworks]

Interesting idea on pointing to explicit IPs instead of names. I never considered that, but probably should.

 

Is any of this automated, though? With eNom it doesn't seem they can pull records from a primary DNS to propogate it their servers. For example, the plesk server would host primary dns, and eNom could handle secondary to 3 servers. Also, I don't see a way to automate a secondary dns in Plesk to point to a primary server. I can manually set it in plesk, but it seems dns record changes are lacking automation.

[brianoz]

Is any of this automated, though? With eNom it doesn't seem they can pull records from a primary DNS to propogate it their servers. For example, the plesk server would host primary dns, and eNom could handle secondary to 3 servers. Also, I don't see a way to automate a secondary dns in Plesk to point to a primary server. I can manually set it in plesk, but it seems dns record changes are lacking automation.

Not sure what any of that means! Basically the defaults are fine. Use two DNS servers, both on the same server for now. When you get to understand the issues, you can add more if you like, but it adds no value at all in the early days - the only time where it makes a difference is if you have DNS records pointing to services hosted somewhere other than on your server. Email will be queued, not lost, if the server is down.