confused about DNS

Aussieguy

Verified User
Joined
Jun 13, 2004
Messages
14
Hi
I am totallly confused about dns and WHEN to use name servers
ns1 ns2 etc

My hosting company who setup the DA box did the inital setup and put in the name servers
ns1.wpdflorida.com 69.46.28.30
ns2.wpdflorida.com 69.46.28.30

This works and all the "users" are resolving excet a couple problems with some.

The one user I am having the most problem with, is located in Hawaii and uses Roadrunner as their ISP (cable)

for the last 3 weeks they have not been able to see their own web site (the web server is located in florida)
It appears to be a local problem in Hawaii RoadRunner network... something about their dns server not updating?

Today MY own isp is refusing to resolve their site when I try www.oahunaturetours.com

it works if I don't use the www


oahunaturetours.com 69.46.28.31
I assigned them an IP # because they required their own SSL certificate

Should I also make a "nameserver" record for this user?

ie... login as the user and add the nameservers
ns1.oahunaturetours.com
ns2.oahunaturetours.com

or should I just leave it as the server wide nameserver?
ns1.wpdflorida.com



Should I make different nameserver records for all users that use the servers main IP address 69.46.28.30 ?

I have read the guides on HOW TO...
but have no idea on WHEN should I use differnet nameservers

also reverse dns
should I make a reverse dns record for each user ?


Thanks
 
Hey,

Might take a look here:

http://www.dnsreport.com/

Put wpdflorida.com in and look at what shows up. That should help get you started on sorting out some of your problems.

BTW, www.oahunaturetours.com shows up OK here.

David

Added:

for the last 3 weeks they have not been able to see their own web site (the web server is located in florida)

WOW... Now that's a patient customer.
 
Aussieguy said:
I am totallly confused about dns and WHEN to use name servers
ns1 ns2 etc
I was about to do an exhaustive test of your domain and nameservers for you, but when I started I got this message :

ERROR: The parent servers say that the domain wpdflorida.com does not exist.

I tried doing a whois lookup on wpdflorida.com.

The root whois server at whois.internic.net told me that whois for wpdflorida.com should be served by whois.aitdomains.com.

But whois.aitdomains.com tells us that the domain doesn't exist:

[jeff@of1 jeff]$ whois wpdflorida.com
[Querying whois.internic.net]
[Redirected to whois.aitdomains.com]
[Querying whois.aitdomains.com]
[whois.aitdomains.com]
No Match for wpdflorida.com
[jeff@of1 jeff]$

You need to resolve your problem with your wpdflorida.com domain first, and you can only do that through the registrar where you registered it.

After that's done, we can revisit the rest of your problems (if they still exist) and your questions.

Jeff
 
AITdomains

cheap registration and.... no service to boot!

I contacted them yesterday (friday) and it looks like I have to wait till it propagates through all the dns servers.

In their wisdom the deleted the ns records for ns1.wpdflorida.com
even though other domains registered with them were using the same ns records.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The oahunaturetours.com is now resolving I can see the domain and so can the client in Hawaii... we believe it was a local network problem with the cable company?

my question is more on the theory of when should I add nameserver and reverse PTR records

should I add a nameserver record in the "user" login DNS
a) for sites with an assigned IP#
b) for sites using the servers main IP#
If I don't have to (it's optional) is there any benefit to having their own ns1 ns2 records (faster , more stable?)

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
should I make reverse mail lookup records for ---> any ---> or all
of the user accounts

If so... do I just add them in the user panel or do I have to edit the server config file ( the forums I read on this are a bit confusing )

If I add a revers PTR how long does it take for this to take effect
is it like dns propagation and can take days?

Is there a good book ?

Thanks for answering these questions (in advance) this forum has always been good.
 
Re: AITdomains

Aussieguy said:
cheap registration and.... no service to boot!

You get what you pay for.
my question is more on the theory of when should I add nameserver and reverse PTR records

should I add a nameserver record in the "user" login DNS
a) for sites with an assigned IP#
b) for sites using the servers main IP#
If I don't have to (it's optional) is there any benefit to having their own ns1 ns2 records (faster , more stable?)
If you do so, you MUST register (or have the user register) their nameservers with the same registrar who registered their domains.

The only advantage is one of anonymity; some clients don't want their savvy users (users who know how to do whois lookups) to know who they're hosting with, so they won't want to use your nameserver names.
should I make reverse mail lookup records for ---> any ---> or all
of the user accounts
Again, let's start at the beginning.

Even if you set up your own reverse zones they won't be used by anyone on the Internet unless the authority for your IP#s (generally your upstream) delegates the authority for them to you.

Generally they only do that if you have a full C-class (256) or more of IP#s.

In your case, using 69.46.28.31 (the IP# for oahunaturetours.com), the authority for those IP#s belongs to dns1.hivelocity.net, and dns1.hivelocity.net doesn't either resolve the reverse DNS, nor does it delegate it to you.

So you need to either have them delegate it to you, or do it properly themselves.

There should only be one hostname or domain name associated with each reverse record.

For dedicated IP# sites we generally point them to (for example) www.example.com.

For shared IP#s, we generally point them to (for example) hostname.example.com, where hostname is the name of the system.
If so... do I just add them in the user panel or do I have to edit the server config file ( the forums I read on this are a bit confusing )
You can add them in the user panel; DA will properly create the zone files.
If I add a revers PTR how long does it take for this to take effect
is it like dns propagation and can take days?
It isn't only "like dns propagation", it IS DNS propagation. So it can take as long as any other DNS propagation.
Is there a good book ?
There are two:

DNS and Bind, published by O'Reilly, and Linux DNS Server Administration published by Sybex.

Both are good for DNS theory and for DNS command-line administration. Neither will tell you how to manage DNS on a DA server.

Jeff
 
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