Add just DNS

[WholesaleDialup]

I am currently trying plan a migration of a bunch of domains that have each of their services hostedon different servers. For example, DNS on 2 different server (primary and seconondary), email on two servers, website on another and so on.

I want to move all services for each of these domains to DA.

It's too much to try and do it all at once so I thought I would start by moving all the DNS to DA, then email, web etc.

Any suggestions for an easy way to create the domains in DNS only, no associated user, Apache, email etc. I know how to do it manually, but I need a more automated solution.

I have shell scripts that do it for me on my vanilla bind servers but I thought there might be a better way to do it on a DA server.

 

[nobaloney]

Don't do it. DirectAdmin will not allow you to create a domain on your server if DNS for it already exists.

You'll be creating more problems than you'll solve.

Jeff

 

[WholesaleDialup]

Don't do it. DirectAdmin will not allow you to create a domain on your server if DNS for it already exists.

You'll be creating more problems than you'll solve.

Jeff

Jeff,

I am aware of that actually. I have handled this in the past by just deleting the domain from DNS Manager in DA before creating the domain within a user account etc.

Is there some other problem I would be creating that I am not aware of?

How else would you suggest I move domains into DA that are currently hosted over 3 or 4 different servers with web, mail, dns etc. all on different servers. Moving domains all at once, mail, web DNS etc. is just a huge disruption to my users, especially if they have complex sites or lots of mailboxes.

I intend to move the domains to DA, just looking for the best approach.

 

[nobaloney]

Every import from non-DirectAdmin servers to DirectAdmin servers has it's own issues.

One way to handle this would be to leave your current nameservers (legacy nameservers)where they are, and continue pointing your DNS services to them.

Then as you move each service to DirectAdmin, set up DNS on your legacy nameservers to point to the new address(es). You can script this, but if you do, and you use a master-slave relationship, be sure to update the serial number of each zone as part of your script.

Once you've finished installing everything on DirectAdmin you should already have new DNS zones, but they may not be correct.

If your zones on your legacy nameservers follow the same format, you can just copy them over your zone files on your DirectAdmin server and restart BIND. But if they're not, then DirectAdmin may not manage them properly, so you might need to script a conversion prior to this point so once they're on DirectAdmin, then DirectAdmin will properly manage them.

One issue you may have if you're going to use the same slaves, is the zone serial numbers. You may need to reset them as otherwise the slaves may not properly update. Several ways to do this can be found here. Of these, I recommend the alternative method; search for Purge each slave of zone data{/i].

If you really want to do all this before you start creating domains in DirectAdmin, I believe that if you create the zones in named.conf, and then the zone files, manually (hopefully scripted) and then restart BIND, DirectAdmin will pick it up.

More: I've used DirectAdmin powered systems in the past to host DNS which doesn't meet the DirectAdmin style, and could conceivably break when managed by DirectAdmin. In that case I use include files in the named/conf file to include zones which I don't want DirectAdmin to ever touch; that works properly for DNS hosting on the instant server, but won't transfer to other nameservers either using the DirectAdmin multi-server option or my own Master2Slavel DNS Replicator.

Another method you could use if you're sure of what your'e doing and are sure you're not going to run anything else in the meantime which would affect DNS, is to manipulate the DirectAdmin template files for DNS so simply creating a new zone in DirectAdmin will give you all the settings you need, including additional records, etc.

In fact there may be API calls for managing DNS in DirectAdmin; I haven't checked because I don't use them for DNS; I do what I've mentioned above.

Jeff