How to setup and configure an external DA DNS Cluster

suhailc

Verified User
Joined
Oct 4, 2004
Messages
119
Hi,

In case you ever wondered how to do the following, here you go...

Hosting provider has 10 DA servers. Each server is using 2 nameservers, resulting in a total of 20 nameservers being used, with DNS being run on all 10 DA servers. Hosting provider now wants to consolidate all hosting servers across 4 nameservers, hosted on 4 external DNS servers, where you'd have:

ns1.domain.com > DNS Server 1
ns2.domain.com > DNS Server 2
ns3.domain.com > DNS Server 3
ns4.domain.com > DNS Server 4

If DNS servers are located in different DCs/cities/countries then you have a redundant DNS cluster. And more locations means more redundancy.

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DirectAdmin DNS Cluster Setup

1.) On each of your hosting servers, enable server clustering via 'Admin > Multi Server Setup'.
2.) Add each of your DNS servers to your hosting servers via 'Add Remote Server'.
3.) Ensure that 'Zone Transfer' and 'Domain Check' are ticked.
4.) Run the following on your first hosting server:

# echo "action=rewrite&value=named" >> /usr/local/directadmin/data/task.queue

This will send the DNS records on that hosting server to your DNS servers.

5.) Check that each of your DNS servers are answering authoritatively for your domains which are on that hosting server using this command(should be run external to the DNS servers):

# nslookup domain.com 123.123.123.123

You should see something like this:

Server: 123.123.123.123
Address: 123.123.123.123#53

Name: domain.com
Address: 789.789.789.789

Where 123.123.123.123 is the DNS server's IP and 789.789.789.789 is the hosting server's IP.

If it isn't answering authoratively, you'll see something like this:

Server: 123.123.123.123
Address: 123.123.123.123#53

Non-authoritative answer:
*** Can't find domain.com: No answer

6.) Check if your 2nd, 3rd, 4th DNS servers also answer for this domain authoritatively. If yes for all, then you've just synced your first hosting server DNS records successfully to your DNS servers!

7.) Repeat the step 4.) for all hosting servers, testing that a domain from each hosting server is answered authoratively by each DNS server. Once all DNS records have been sent across to all DNS servers, the first stage is complete, as any changes on hosting servers will now be synced to DNS servers('Zone Transfer' must be ticked).

8.) You can now change the IP associated with your secondary nameservers(ns2/ns4) to the corresponding DNS server IPs at the domain registrar. Note it may take a few hours for these DNS changes to propagate across to all locations.

(Note: If you are transferring existing nameservers running off your hosting servers, you'll also need to edit the DNS zone on the relevant hosting server to change the relevant 'ns' record to the new DNS IP.)

9.) Check a hosted domain using your nameservers at http://www.intodns.com to see if the DNS is now being served correctly by the corresponding DNS server. If the DNS report is clean and error free, proceed to change your primary nameservers. Again put a number of hosted domains through the DNS report to check if the DNS is being answered correctly by your external DNS servers.

10.) If DNS reports are clean and error free for domains across all your hosting servers, sit back and treat yourself for a job well done!

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- For this setup to work, each DNS server/VM needs to have DA installed.
- Only one DA hosting server should hold the DNS zone for your nameserver domain.

DA Help On Multi Server Clustering: http://help.directadmin.com/item.php?id=97

Zone Transfer: DA will transfer the dns info on the specified server when new domains are added and dns settings are changed.
Domain Check: DA will first check the specified server before creating a domain to ensure the domain does not exist.
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Regards,
Suhail.
 
Interesting, we use a hidden master set up to have four master DNS servers that are only DNS.
 
Well but this will force you to use 4 DA License just for DNS there was a nice software called "master2slave" that should do this without force you to use 4 license just for dns..

Am i wrong?
 
Well but this will force you to use 4 DA License just for DNS there was a nice software called "master2slave" that should do this without force you to use 4 license just for dns..

Am i wrong?

No you're absolutely correct :) I'm sure there are other ways of doing this without paying for the additional DA licenses, but some people prefer to keep everything DA, due to the support that comes with it.

However, perhaps DA can produce a DNS only free version, similar to Cpanel's DNS Only free version?
 
that should be awesome :p or, at least a script to add bind9 and links option with a production da... so, no needed an interface.. just.. the interconnection between server and dns server... well.. interface should be nice for easy manage dns.. but.. not really necessary at all
 
While we might be able to offer a system that would work only with DirectAdmin, I don't see that we ever would; the advantage of Master2Slave DNS Replicator (which we paid to have written) is that it works with most posix-compliant systems, not just DirectAdmin.

Jeff
 
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