I recently got a new Virtual Dedicated Server (VDS) from www.vilitas.com. Instead of running a control panel like WHM/CPanel, I decided to "manage" this server the old fashion way, by command line. One of the first things I needed to get up and running is the domain nameserver (DNS) or named (I think the "d" in the name stands for daemon, correct me if I am wrong).

Anyway, I thought I'd share my experience getting this done, in this thread. To do that clearly, let me explain what I had planned to get done first.

The plan.

I received 2 IP numbers from my web host that I needed to point to:

NS1.GIDNETWORK.COM - 199.263.4.65
NS2.GIDNETWORK.COM - 199.263.4.66

I needed to set these nameservers up and have 2 test domains and gidnetwork.com itself pointing to each. The example / domains are:

gidnetwork.com ...obviously
gidnetwork.info
gidwebhosts.info

The Domain Registrar.

I had to login to my domain manager at my domain registrar e.g. www.dynadot.com and set up the 2 new nameservers, i.e. NS1.GIDNETWORK.COM and NS2.GIDNETWORK.COM and have them registered to the 2 IP numbers respectively (199.236.4.65 & 199.236.4.66). This is pretty straightforward, so it will not be something you will be struggling to do. In the event you cannot find the option to do this easily, you should ask your domain registrar for help. As usual, this takes anywhere between a few hours and a few days to really set. You can check the status of your update by using the tool found here: http://registrar.verisign-grs.com/whois/

File - /etc/resolv.conf

This is a file I am not really sure about... but this file, /etc/resolv.conf, was one of the first files on my new server that I modified. Here's an example of what mine looks like right now:


The Zone Files

I had to set up a zone file for each of the domains in my plan. These files, at least on my server, are placed inside the /var/named folder. If you look around inside the folder before you do anything else, you should see the following existing files: localhost.zone, named.ca, named.local and a sub directory: slaves.

I believe you have a freehand naming the zone files you going to create next but it's common to have the domain name inserted somewhere in the filename. e.g. here's what I did:
gidnetwork.com - /var/named/gidnetwork.com.db
gidnetwork.info - /var/named/gidnetwork.info.db
gidwebhosts.info - /var/named/gidwebhosts.info.db

... to be continued.

__________________
J de Silva
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