This is only a quick
tutorial, there are literally hundreds of little tricks you can do with a DNS,
but this
will get
your basics up and running. I'm assuming you want to setup a windows DNS
server, but the principals will work for most servers.
You will need..
1) A domain
name over which you have full control
2) DNS server
software(Windows server always comes with one of these)
3) At least
one fixed IP address, allthough two is highly desirable
4) An idea of
what services you want on your server
The first thing you need to
do is create your new domain entry. In windows this is called a
"Zone" and you
will have
one for every domain name you have. Add your main domain in the forward lookup
zone as a Primary zone, which will be in the format "Domainname.com",
or .co.uk, or whatever, you shouldn't need any more details for this bit. Do
*not* allow dynamic updates unless this is a local network DNS. Once it is
created
you will have 2 entry's under
your new domain, "SOA"(Or Start of Authority) and "NS"(Or
Name server). If you
want a 100% compliant DNS then you should now
follow the same process but adding a domain as a reverse lookup zone. Any
changes you make to the forward lookup should have the "Update Reverse
Lookup" option ticked if its available, if not you must update the reverse
zone manually(This is very important).
Now edit
the "NS" entry in your forward zone to
"NS0.DomainName.Com", and set it to the relevant IP address. Add
another (NS) record and set it to "NS1.DomainName.Com". If using 2 IP
address, try to make NS0 the first IP. Now you need to configure the SOA entry
in the forward lookup zone. The serial number should be changed to a date
followed by a number in this format "YYYYMMDDnn", this is not required,
but is advised by RIPE. The primary server will be the
"NS0.domainname.com" entry you just made and the responsible person
should be left for now. The refresh interval should be set somewhere between
1200 to 43200 seconds, the retry should be between 120-7200 seconds and the
expires after should be around 2-4 weeks(I'll let you work out the seconds for
that). The minimum TTL is quite important, and depending on what you are going
to do with the domain, you might need to tweak this a bit. Typically a value
between 1-3 hours should be used. Now go to your "Name server"
settings in your SOA record(In windows this is a tab in the same window) remove
the defaults, and add your two Name servers that you just setup. We will come
back to the SOA record later, but for now we need to do some more stuff.
If you
want a website, then your going to want the WWW. setting up. We will set it up
as an "A" record, which means it is a separate top level record and
will be populated separately from other entries. So add an "A" to
your forward lookup zone and put the entry as "WWW", and set the IP
address to wherever you want the website to be. This will be where the domain
always goes, and it could be anywhere. Just make sure there is a web server
waiting there for it. If you want FTP, then setup the same thing but with
"FTP" in the entry. You will
now also
have to setup "A" records for the NS0 and NS1 name servers that you
added previously, just make them the same as WWW and FTP, but make sure the IP
addresses match the ones used for setting up the "NS" records. Also
add a blank "A" record, this will make sure that
"domainname.com" works as well as "www.domainname.com".
Now you
should decide whether or not you want to have mail on this domain. It is Hegel
advisable that you set one up, even if it just to catch domain mail about abuse
or potential problems that might occur. You can find plenty of high quality
free mail servers out there, but I would recommend "Mail Enable", its
free and provides everything you would want, but if you want webmail you do
have to pay something extra for it. We will now configure the MX records. Add
an "A" name for your mail server, you can add 2 if you want, but for
simplicity I would advise staying with 1. We will call ours "Mail.domainname.com",
and point it to one of our IP addresses. Now add an "MX" record in
the Forward Lookup zone, giving it the full "A" record you just
entered "Mail.domainname.com", and do not setup a host or child
domain, just leave it blank.
This next step isn't needed, but
is again highly recommended.
Now to
finish the SOA you need to add two more records. A "RP" entry, which
is a Responsible Person, and they will be the contact point for domain
complaints and a "MB" entry, which is a mailbox entry. The
"MB" should just be pointed to the mail server domain name
"Mail.domainname.com", and the "RP" should have the host or
domain set to the name of your mail box. So for this server it will be
"Tony.Domainname.com", and the mailbox will be set to the
"MB" record you just made. Don't worry about the RP address having no
"@" in it, this is
the
expected format for an "RP" entry. You will now have to go back into
the SOA and change the responsible person to the new "RP" record you
just made.
And thats
it, your done! You can add as many "A" records as you like to point
to other web servers, or a multitude of FTP sites. And you can add
"CNAME" records to basically point to another name, usually an
"A" record, like an alias.
Now before
you switch your domain on, you need to check that the server is performing
properly. So go to www.dnsreport.com, and run the report on your domain
"domainname.com", and it will give you a very detailed report of any
problems, and even a short description of how to fix the problems. If all is
OK, then you are ready to go live. If your domain name is new, or not currently
hosted anywhere then the first thing you should do is re-point the domain at
your new server. You will typically do this with the provider who owns the
domain, and it will be different with all hosts. But the basic settings are the
same. You will be asked for at least 2 name servers and ip addresses to go with
them. Just put in "NS0.domainname.com" and
"NS1.domainname.com" and put in the correct IP addresses. Make sure
you do not mess this up, as changes to your main NS servers could potentially
take several days to straighten themselves out. Update these settings, and then
sit back and wait. You can do a whois on the main DNS server of your domain
provider to check if the settings have worked, but again this doesn't always
work. For the big 3 domains(.com .net .org) you can do a whois on the network
associates site to see the changes instantly. You can also track the progress
of the domain changes by doing an NSLookup in dos, like this...
c:\nslookup
ns0.domainname.com NS0.yourprovidersdns.com
That will give you the
entries your domain provider has
c:\nslookup
www.domainname.com ns0.domainname.com
And this
will tell you if the changes for your domain have gone through to your ISPs DNS
yet. It should give you back the IP address of your new DNS server.
You should
always make sure your server is backed up, and that you refresh or update the
DNS when you are making changes.
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