DNS questions, major changes...

[truenegative]

I've posted on here about dns stuff before, and learned some things from jlasman, and I'm ready to make a major change in my DNS. My server is starting to pick up clients, so I need to make these decisions and implement them fairly soon.

First, a question....Is it really worth having a hidden master setup? I mean, a colleague of mine made the argument that if the server goes down, so does DNS, but why would you want DNS up if the server is down anyways?

If I choose to do a hidden master set up, I will have to create ns1 and ns2 somewhere and use master2slave to replicate up to them. Otherwise, If I choose to let the DA server manage the DNS, it would probably be a good idea to use like ns1-server.domain.com and ns2-server.domain.com, so that as I add servers, the dns nameservers do not conflict.


Second, I want to change my server's hostname from server.domain1.com to server.domain2.net. Are there any ramifications to doing this? Do I need to be careful or make any other changes at the same time?



Thanks in advance, and I think thats all of my DNS questions

 

[nobaloney]

I've posted on here about dns stuff before, and learned some things from jlasman,

Thanks <blush>.

First, a question....Is it really worth having a hidden master setup? I mean, a colleague of mine made the argument that if the server goes down, so does DNS, but why would you want DNS up if the server is down anyways?

There's another way to do multiple servers without hidden masters (more below), but first, there are several reasons why you want DNS to be up even if the server is down.

In no special order:

EMAIL: if the server is down mailservers all over the net will wait up to four days before returning the email as undeliverable; they'll keep trying. If DNS is down, they'll immediately return the email with a "No such domain" message. I don't think you or your clients want that.

WEBSITES: If the server is down browsers will see a message that says the site is unreachable. If DNS is down they'll see a message that the site doesn't exist.

And if the site doesn't exist you and your clients can expect to disappear from Google, etc., rather quickly. It can take months to get back search engine results afterwards. Which do you think your clients will want?

If I choose to do a hidden master set up, I will have to create ns1 and ns2 somewhere and use master2slave to replicate up to them. Otherwise, If I choose to let the DA server manage the DNS, it would probably be a good idea to use like ns1-server.domain.com and ns2-server.domain.com, so that as I add servers, the dns nameservers do not conflict.

We don't use hidden masters. We have additional nameservers. We use master2slave to do our replication.

For each server the master is the local DNS server and we use master2slave (don't forget, it can slave multiple masters) for multiple slaves.

Second, I want to change my server's hostname from server.domain1.com to server.domain2.net. Are there any ramifications to doing this? Do I need to be careful or make any other changes at the same time?

Yes, you need to make sure you've got your servername in DNS in the new zone. And you can't just do the hostname change at the shell prompt, you need to do it the DA way. Use the /usr/local/directadmin/scripts/hostname.sh script as root.

Jeff

 

[truenegative]

Thanks for the quick response Jeff! You really are a great help to everyone on these forums.

I suppose for simplicity and saving money at the moment, I may get one or two VPS' somewhere and use them as permanent DNS servers. You mention that you don't use hidden masters....When someone registers a domain, and they put in the nameservers are they different? Such as ns1-server.domain.com, ns2-server.domain.com, ns1.domain.com, ns2.domain.com ?? You say you don't do with a hidden master...what is the naming scheme you use to prevent conflicts over multiple servers?

What do you see as some of the pros/cons to doing it with a hidden master?

Also, keep in mind that I would like to add some Xen-based VPS w/ direct admin sometime in the future.

Thanks again Jeff, You're great!

 

[nobaloney]

Anything that works for you .

We own several domains for nameservers.

For our main servers we use the server name: for example for server da1.example.com we'd use ns1.example.com, and for da2.example.com, we'd use ns2.example.com.

For the first slave server we used (for example) ns0.example.com, for the second ns.example.com. For the third we'll have to get creative, perhaps nss1 or something .

We don't use hidden masters because we don't. No special reason. Perhaps we should .

Jeff

 

[truenegative]

Cool, thanks again Jeff I'll post back with how I make out...