Help With Home Server

[Robert Brockway]

On Sun, 31 Aug 2003, Jay wrote:

> okay, for my DNS registration I have the following options
>
> Primary DNS Host:
> Primary DNS IP:
> Secondary DNS Host:
> Secondary DNS IP:
>
> It tells me I need at least 2. Should I fill them both out with the same
> information both pointing to my machine/IP.  Thats what I did?

Hi Jay.  You need to arrange for 2 (or more) machines with static
addresses to act as authorative servers for you.  If you home Linux box
has a static address, then you can use it at one (as ling as it is ok
within the AUP).  Your ISP may well be able to run the other one.

Alternatively you could look at EveryDNS (http://www.everydns.net).  You
can run your primary & secondary nameservers there for free.  For my
domains I have the primary namserver on my own box and use EveryDNS as
secondaries.

Once you have the 2 machines (wherever they happen to be) correctly
configured, you can "delegate" to these machines and your domain goes
live.

> I also asked istop to change from jay.tor.istop.com to hostname.domain.ca

They could change the reverse lookup to point to hostname.domain.ca but it
isn't strickly necessary for the functioning of your domain.  Just as
long as you have some sort of reverse going.

> Nowhere does it ask for ZOA or anything like that? I assume that is when I

SOA (Start of Authority) is an important part of the zonefile and includes
things like the origin (primary nameserver) and the serial (a number that
tells authorative servers if their copy of the zonefile is current).

There are a lot of ways to subtly get dns configuration wrong (something
like 30% of fortune 1000 companies have their dns somewhat misconfigured).
I'd suggest reading up a bit more on how dns works to make sure you get it
going properly, and I'd suggest giving serious consideration to EveryDNS.

Rob

-- 
Robert Brockway B.Sc. email: robert-5LEc/6Zm6xCUd8a0hrldnti2O/JbrIOy at public.gmane.org, zzbrock at uqconnect.net
Linux counter project ID #16440 (http://counter.li.org)
"The earth is but one country and mankind its citizens" -Baha'u'llah
--
The Toronto Linux Users Group.      Meetings: http://tlug.ss.org
TLUG requests: Linux topics, No HTML, wrap text below 80 columns
How to UNSUBSCRIBE: http://tlug.ss.org/subscribe.shtml