Help needed tying second nameserver to different IP

[Strator]

In that case, only 1 domain then? Or multiple? Only in the main domain like domain.com in ns1.domain.com needs both A records.
Every other domain (even it's only your domains) normally only contain the NS records, so then not much needs to be adjusted.
And for sure I understand now that you don't have any need to run your own nameservers and external is enough.

Two dozen domains actually. And I do run my own nameservers, which is why it is such a problem that I cannot add ns2 with the same IP as it was before.

 

[floyd]

All I know is somehow this has been made way more complicated than it needs to be.

Are you having a problem at the registrar or on your own server? Both have been mentioned.

 

[ericosman]

No offense, but if you run 24 domains, why not spare 24 USD to setup a real second nameserver (free software, payed server) and have "no issues" anymore(?)

 

[Richard G]

And I do run my own nameservers, which is why it is such a problem that I cannot add ns2 with the same IP as it was before.

Well... running 2 nameservers with 1 ip isn't really what I call running own nameservers. We can't even enter the same ip twice with our registrars for the .nl domains in our country. At least not with most.

Anyway, it should be possible. I always use the enhanced skin to fix these kind of things, works a lot easyer. So like asked before. Where lies the problem?
If it's with DA it should be not that difficult to fix it again.

 

[Stije]

Why don't you just use the NameServers of your domain registrar and create "fake glue" records so you can still use your "own nameservers" but have no costs or fear for any downtime with your server. Depending on some factors.

But if you. want your own nameserver with 1 IP (or 1 on a IPv6 if you have this on the vps for free )
You can add the same IP if you want. But you need to check with every registrar if you are allowed to have 1 IP on both ns names.

Anyway let's say your domain is kiwi.com. And you want to use. ns1.kiwi.com and ns2.kiwi.com.

You edit your DNS records for the domain kiwi.com. (either at your registrar or in DA if you already put it on these nameservers)
Add 2 A records:

ns1     A      12.45.67.890
ns2     A      12.45.67.890

That is all. Then do just normal setup as intended in directadmin. And add NS servers.

You can always dm/pm for help.

 

[Strator]

Sorry for the late reply, I've been traveling and stuck between places.

To sum this up one more time: I've had a setup that worked out for many years. Strictly speaking, this is not a technical issue, but a human one - someone in the Directadmin development team felt like it's a good idea to disallow something that was previously allowed. The reason I think this is uncool is because I'm being protected from something I don't want to be protected from - it's my server, and whether or not my setup can lead to downtime or not should be my choice and not anyone elses. So I was hoping that there's some workaround - since Directadmin is only an interface, I'm fairly sure there is, but if nobody can point me to it, I am out of luck.

I guess it's obvious by now that I have some knowledge gap concerning nameservers. I wasn't aware of that, because until now, everything was working fine so I didn't need to go beyond what I knew. I set up the nameservers with my registrar, added the A records in Directadmin and put the nameservers with the respective IPs under "nameservers". Only now, that directadmin doesn't allow me to perform that last step do I realize that I don't understand why it is necessary in the first place (or what I can do instead). Setting up "virtual" nameservers via directadmin will add A records. What happens when you set up non-virtual nameservers, I simply do not know. And the directadmin beginner's guide doesn't answer that question, either:

HOWTO: Setup your nameservers (Real Beginners Guide)

At the Registrar: 1. Pick a domain that you own to use for a DNS server. 2. Go to your registrar and log in. 3. Go to a screen called manage my domain or domain management (You are looking for the screen that lets you make changes to an already registered domain) 4. Go to the option Register DNS...

forum.directadmin.com

@ericosman: No offense taken. But your question sounds a bit like: "If you have 24 quid and a toilet, why not put one into the other and press "flush"?" I simply had no reason to do so, and if I had $24 per year to spare, I'd rather give them to some poor sucker on the street than waste them on something that isn't needed.

And not that it's important, but I started setting up my own name servers when my registrar at the time screwed up big-time and my sites were offline for two days. All of these stories of redundancy and RFC compliancy sound fabulous in theory, but in practice I've learned you're always better off if you can control the relevant parts of the system yourself.

 

[Strator]

Seems like my knowledge gap isn't as big as I thought...

virtual nameservers vs normal nameserver setup

Hi all, I would like to start a little discussion to see how others think about the following. As we all know ipv4 ip addresses are running short and every one try's to spare them. If you sell reseller hosting many resellers want there own nameservers so it will cost 2 ip adresses how ever...

forum.directadmin.com

So if I get that correctly, the "nameserver" tab in Directadmin is just a tool to create the respective a records. If the tool doesn't behave, you can go to dns directly and do it manually, as it's the exact same thing.

Which means it's irrelevant whats under "nameservers" - if the DNS records look good, you're good.

 

[floyd]

I said that in the beginning that all you had to do was go to DNS Management and add the records. You were making it way more complicated than it needed to be. There are 3 steps:

1. Make sure ns2.domain.com is set up at the registrar with the second ip.
2. Add the ip in IP Management (if its not already there).
3. Add the dns record in DNS Management for domain.com.

 

[Richard G]

Which means it's irrelevant whats under "nameservers" - if the DNS records look good, you're good.

Depends on where under "nameservers".
But DA is working kind of as a caching DNS server (so it locally knows what it's doing), if you are using external nameservers.

So if you just setup DA with 1 ip, then add them both in the admin domain as nameservers, and you can use those as nameservers on DA or as virtual nameservers. Doesn't really matter since the external nameservers are doing the DNS work.

Setting up "virtual" nameservers via directadmin will add A records.

You can just as well add the A records manually. As to why DA doesn't allow you the last step is still not clear to me, at least if you have added the 2nd ip in the ip management first. It should not cause any issues. Virtual nameservers option is normally never used as admin as far as I know, or at least I never used it as admin, only as reseller.

It's all very easy, as floyd already said before, if you have 2 seperate ip addresses.

1. Make sure ns2.domain.com is set up at the registrar with the second ip.

But he wants 2 nameservers with 1 ip, so he doesn't have a second ip if I read correctly, or at least, that ip was only temporarily.
In case he want's to keep his 2nd ip, indeed that's the way to go. Easy as pie.

 

[Strator]

I said that in the beginning that all you had to do was go to DNS Management and add the records. You were making it way more complicated than it needed to be. There are 3 steps:

1. Make sure ns2.domain.com is set up at the registrar with the second ip.
2. Add the ip in IP Management (if its not already there).
3. Add the dns record in DNS Management for domain.com.

Which is why I was trying to take this to a separate thread even though I ended up getting scolded for it. Your instructions were fine for the initial problem, but in the meantime, I was trying to solve a different issue, namely how to switch back to a setup with only one IP.

 

[floyd]

Do you still not know how to manage DNS? That is all you are doing. There is nothing special. All of it handled within DNS Management.

 

[Strator]

Do you still not know how to manage DNS? That is all you are doing. There is nothing special. All of it handled within DNS Management.

Are you deliberately trying to misunderstand me? You got your point. You had it long ago.

What was confusing me is Directadmin's "Nameservers" form ( /CMD_NAME_SERVER available under Extra Features->Nameservers). I assumed it's a Custombuild-style smart form that can read the current state of affairs, and that, by deleting name servers from there, I broke something, somewhere, that I somehow needed to fix. Turns out it's a fairly primitive one-way form that simply writes A records (to a point that it might create duplicate entries). The info given there is not a "reading" of anything and can therefore safely be ignored.

At this point I am merely trying to make this clear, so that anyone falling victim to the same misunderstanding can find the info more easily (after all, the original post where I found the answer was 12 years old). Thank to you and Richard (and everyone else) for their help.

 

[Richard G]

to take this to a separate thread even though I ended up getting scolded for it.

And justified scolded because:
a.) it's still an issue with your vps so can be handled in your existing thread handling about nameservers too.
b.) it was not a seperate thread but you upped on ancient thread of 16 years old which is just not done. Even if neccessary after so many years one opens a new thread and if required one can point to the ancient thread for reference. And did not contain any additional info.
c.) Switching back to 1 ip was spoken about here too already so no need to up some old post.

Just between us, in that thread there is also a post from a very kind guy known to us which has departed us a few years ago. Also a good reason to don't use that kind of old threads.
I didn't want to up that thread again by posting this on that thread.

We can keep discussing this, but this is just net etiquette and it might be better to agree to disagree on this.

Back on topic, in thread I want to help you, no problem at all.

Switching back to 1 ip is no issue at all. Remove the ip from the manager and change the A record for NS2 to your primary ip and you're ready.

I don't know what's wrong and I would like to have a look for you to fix that issue, but mostly just for this reason I used the Enhanced skin because that has a more clear overview of things going on.

Maybe you can post a screenshot of where the error is so we can help, or try to fix it using Enhanced skin.
I don't like having errors either, even if they can be ignored, I rather have it fixed if that is possible.

So maybe we can get rid of that error for you, either by loggin in to your server, maybe with some screenshots, or via Teamviewer, or via PM is also possible if you don't want to place a screenshot.
However, I would have a look in Enhanced skin if I were you (if you didn't already do so) to make things a bit easier.

 

[floyd]

What was confusing me is Directadmin's "Nameservers" form ( /CMD_NAME_SERVER available under Extra Features->Nameservers). I assumed it's a Custombuild-style smart form that can read the current state of affairs, and that, by deleting name servers from there, I broke something, somewhere, that I somehow needed to fix. Turns out it's a fairly primitive one-way form that simply writes A records (to a point that it might create duplicate entries). The info given there is not a "reading" of anything and can therefore safely be ignored.

Those are nameserver records that are assigned to users. When they add domains those nameservers will be used in the zone file as ns records. It is completely separate from what you are trying to accomplish. There is no way to even set an ip address there because ip addresses are not used for this purpose. This is simply telling the rest of the world what nameservers to use. It is not setting up a nameserver or creating a nameserver. It doesn't even write A records. It writes NS records as shown in the screenshot.

Now if this not the screen you are referring to then please post a screenshot. But this is the screen for /CMD_NAME_SERVER.

The 2 images below correspond to each other. But this is not what you were having a problem with.

 

[Strator]

So once more - my problem is solved. All we are doing now is a bit of autopsy for the curious...

Floyd, that's very interesting, and it explains why we may have been miscommunicating for a while. ABOVE the screenshot you have posted (but on the same page) I have an entire section called "Nameservers". There's a big fat blue button labeled "CREATE NAME SERVERS" and yes, you can assign IPs, too (if you have two spare ones, that is). There's also a list with name servers, the IPs associated with them, check boxes and a "Delete" button.

You don't have that?

@Richard: Back in the days, I've been running a forum >50,000 active members and it's been deemed one of the best on the Net. Nowadays, things have changed, however. In 2024 hardly anyone bothers to read through the previous posts anymore, and once you've reached page 2 before the issue is resolved, you're basically screwed. I've learned to compartmentalize my issues into the smallest possible chunks to get around this, and it works more often than not. Another thing (and this hasn't changed) is that forum threads are also a resource for people with the same problems, and for that reason, it can often make sense to split a chain of issues into several topics with distinctive titles. Not wanting to argue on this one, just explaining that my choice - even though it may have been the wrong choice in this case - wasn't made out of ignorance.

 

[floyd]

Floyd, that's very interesting, and it explains why we may have been miscommunicating for a while. ABOVE the screenshot you have posted (but on the same page) I have an entire section called "Nameservers". There's a big fat blue button labeled "CREATE NAME SERVERS" and yes, you can assign IPs, too (if you have two spare ones, that is). There's also a list with name servers, the IPs associated with them, check boxes and a "Delete" button.

Yes I know. Problem solved. But discussing it further will help people understand what is happening.

Here is the full page

Create Nameservers simply creates the ns1 and ns2 A records for the domain and modifies the NS records in the zone file.

I am not sure how it got the ips. Those are not on this server at all because I use stand alone nameservers. I think it got it from the fact that I had previous set ns1 and ns2.littlecreekhosting as the primary nameservers and just did a lookup of those. You you can easily change the ips to whatever you need them to be from DNS Management.

After creating the nameservers for example1.com they are still not listed on that page. I still have the first screenshot.

If I go back to the Create Nameservers page and enter ns5 and ns6 for example1.com it replaces the NS records and adds 2 more A records, ns5 and ns6. ns1 and ns2 still exist.

But this is why I kept going back to just using DNS Management because at least to me DNS Management is more clear. You always know what you have set up. But I also learned to manage dns before there was a control panel. I learned it from an actual book.

 

[Richard G]

it can often make sense to split a chain of issues into several topics with distinctive titles.

I fully agree with that, but by starting new threads, just not by upping ancient ones (1-3 years when exactly same issue is not a biggy imho).
I already had the impression that you didn't make the post out of ignorance and had a longer experience since you were one of the first I've seen talking about net-etiquette for many years.
I'm also already busy since we had echomail and netmail and forums, just nog 50k users, most of mine was around 15k users in the day.

Anyway, glad to see the problem is solved and no error is arising anymore.