Setting up dns server... a few questions

[stratusfear]

I'm interested in hosting my website from my home. I've already covered the connection aspect of it (T1 and Cable for backup), and I was wondering...

1) Do you have to register your dns servers with a specific company (internic?) or just the one that you register your domain with?

2) What would be decent hardware for a dns server? cpu, ram, etc.

3) Does each dns server have to have its own ip?

4) Do you have to have a primary and secondary dns server? If so, why?

I'm sure I'll think of a few more questions in the near future, but as for now, any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance

 

[randal]

here ya go:

1) nope ... just domains have to be registered -- you put in the dns servers there

2) if it's linux, anything p200 ang 64+ will do very well. windoze? depends on if you're on nt4 or win2k ... nt4, I wouldn't go below 266mhz and 64mb, supposing it will do *ONLY* dns ... win2k, I'd say minimum 300mhz + 64-128 if it's only doing dns, maybe a couple other small things.

3) yup

4) no - you don't have to, but it's recommended in case the first one fails. a lot of places have just one dns server, and as long as it doesn't go down, it's okay for it to handle all resolution requests ... but would you want to make your site or possibly your whole business reliant on your old crusty dns server?

feel free to ask anything, we're pretty knowledgable.

 

[stratusfear]

Wow! Thanks for all the help. I came up with a few more Q's

notes:
- it is going to be a linux based server. perhaps, i may include a win 2k server in the future.
- slackware 7.1
- keep in mind i am new to linux and am trying to aquire the required knowleged of how to setup and deploy a webserver.

1) Can my web server and dns server be using the same ip?

2) What about the dns server names? How do i go about doing that? Do they have to be named something like ns1.mysite.com ?

3) What is the purpose for having the dns server names and not just having the ip?

If you could include any additional information that you may think would be relevant or important i'd really appreciate it.

Sorry if im just rambling on... but this webserver stuff seems to be very complex.

 

[randal]

yes, your dns server and web server can be on the same IP. Although a lot of people balk at running both on one machine, I don't see a real problem with it at all as long as the machine is powerful enough to do it all without choking.

The DNS server name is setup like so: you think of a domain name you want. say "xyz.com" ... then you think about what you want to call your DNS server ... "ns1" [name server 1] is a very common and good name. so, when you register your domain name with a registrar, you register xyz.com, and for the NS server, you put in ns1.xyz.com and the IP you plan on giving that machine. that's it =)

the server names are there simply so that everyone doesn't have to remember hordes of www.xxx.yyy.zzz addresses; it's much much much easier to remember ns1.hpi.net instead of 209.12.9.10 [real world example]. That's the whole point of DNS; resolve names [ns1.xyz.com, www.anandtech.com, google.com etc.] to an IP so that you don't have to remember a few billion IP addresses.

Believe, DNS is a wonderful beast, but it can also suck royally. Keep the questions comin and we'll see what we can do

$.05 <-- more than double the normal worth!
randal

 

[Artnoc]

There have been several important security updates since Slackware 7.1, especially to bind. Check out www.slackware.com and the forum there as well for more information.

 

[stratusfear]

Is there a micro distribution of linux that acts as a dns server like lrp?

 

[WoundedWallet]

Just to ad something I'm not too sure about..(why waste time eh?)... regarding the registration of your dns server.

I originally registered my server and domains with internic, a free service. Then later when the new and cheaper domain registrations came along I jumped ship, but during the registration I didn't see (overlooked?) any option to register a dns server.

So it is possible that some domain registars don't support dns server registration, in that case you would need to go and do it with internic(or network solutions), which is free if I haven't mentioned yet.