Domain and account setup best practices for non-resellers

[TechTronic]

My intended use case for DA is that I will manage everything for the multiple domains hosted within DA. I will host my primary company domain website, as well as other domains/websites/mail on the DA server. I have no need for separating admins/resellers/users, I will be acting as and performing the functions of all of the above. I'm trying to decide what is the best approach as far as setting up the "primary" domain of the server, and setting up the user account(s?) I'll need to administer everything.

Let's say my company domain is acme.com. Would there be any advantage/disadvantage to setting up the DA server using this domain, and then giving it the hostname web.acme.com? Or would it better/worse to setup a completely separate domain, say acmehosting.com, and then setup the DA server with hostname web.acmehosting.com? I currently manage DNS for acme.com using Cloudflare and would like to keep it there, so how does that factor in, if at all? If I go with a separate domain like acmehosting.com, I would be fine with running the DA server as the nameserver for its own domain, and not use Cloudflare; any advantage to this setup?

As for user accounts, is there any functional or security reason to setup accounts in the hierarchy of admin -> reseller -> user, and use those separate accounts for different administrative tasks, or can it all be done with one admin account?

If anyone else out there with a similar use case could comment on their environment setup I would appreciate it.

 

[ericosman]

My personal advice:
For every domain a separate account, this because if a site get's hacked or something the rest is more safe.

 

[Richard G]

Would there be any advantage/disadvantage to setting up the DA server using this domain, and then giving it the hostname web.acme.com?

Best is not to use default names for hostnames, so no mail or www, imap and such, could give troubles later.
However, web is not a default name so yes that would be possible. The hostname doesn't really matter, you can also user server, srv1, vps, my or whatever you like.

I don't use Cloudflare DNS, but if you would like to switch to your own nameservers later on, then it might be easier to already have the correct domain in use.
For example if I would have acme.com and I plan maybe to later on use ns1.acme.com and ns2.acme.com then I would use web.acme.com or server.acme.com as the hostname for example.

If you rather use acmehosting.com for your nameservers, then I personally also would use something like server.acmehosting.com for the hostname.

Benefit of running own nameservers? For sure.
You don't have any fuzz with external nameservers, all options can be done via DA. Next to that, no issues with automatic SSL certificates, no need to configure LEGO, this all works automatically.

Be aware that some registrars do not accept the same ip for 2 nameservers, so in some cases a secondary ip is required or a cheap vps with for example Directslave running as secondary nameserver. It all depends what you want.

The reason for the hierarchie is safety. I wouldn't set every domain under admin unless you're the only customer on the server.

Best is only admin, with admin domain, and use a reseller account for the customers. Or multiple reseller accounts, which might make transfer to other servers later on (if needed) a bit easier.

 

[johannes]

Or would it better to setup a completely separate domain, say acmehosting.com, and then setup the DA server with hostname web.acmehosting.com?

As for user accounts, is there any functional or security reason to setup accounts in the hierarchy of admin -> reseller -> user, and use those separate accounts for different administrative tasks, or can it all be done with one admin account?

1) better to set them (domain, hostname) up as separate domains
2) for maintenance tasks, backup/restores, available DA scripts for domain handling, etc., its better to use the hierarchy and not to remain inside adminpanel only. Setup 1 reseller (yourself) and within them one user (yourself). Use latter for the domains.

 

[Richard G]

1) better to set them (domain, hostname) up as separate domains

Can you also give a good argument as to why that should be seperate domains? Because I don't see any issue on that.
So I'm curious as to a why it would be better.

 

[johannes]

x) own dns zone records
x) separated SSL certs
x) separated backups
x) separated PHP versions
x) hostname will show pages in /var/www/html , whereas subdomain usually under /user/sub.domain.xy/.. or /user/domain.xy/public_html/subdomain - danger of conflicts
x) easier domain handling
.. and a few more which i have forgotten

 

[Richard G]

I don't understand, sorry. And you normally don't use the hostname record for a website.

So the only thing which will not work for a hostname is a seperate PHP version for the hostname. It will always use the php version DA is using, which is not a problem imho.

For the domain, all things you mention are still the same and possible.
I have server.example.com and I use this with a seprate zone file.
So I can use example.com just as any other domain with every benefit you mention. Including every subdomain like in your example.

You name several things, but only for the hostname which will show 1 page in /var/www/html, there is no explanation.
And this is how it's done in DA since the beginning.

I still don't see any difference if I would use server.example.com and example.com as domain, or user server.example.com and not use example.com anymore for the rest at all.
It's just a lost domainname like this if only used for hostname.

Maybe things might be a bit more difficult if you use the server's hostname as an A record in your domain name instead of as a seperate DNS zone record.
But all the rest for the domain itself is still possible without any problem.

 

[johannes]

seems you got me wrong, i wrote "separate" domains, not "different" domains.

I still don't see any difference if I would use server.example.com and example.com as domain, or user server.example.com and not use example.com anymore for the rest at all.

absolutely agree. i did mean he should not setup the hostname as subdomain under his domain, thats all.