DNS problems (I think?)

Hello everyone,

I’m trying to setup a server at home for my own use, and possibly allowing a couple of friends to host their sites in the future.

I started with a fresh install of Ubuntu 14.04.3, and installed Virtualmin with the install script. Didn’t encounter any problems with the install or setup. I named the server “ns1.mydomain.com

I enabled port forwarding on my router to the server’s internal ip, port 80

I purchased the domain name from namecheap, “mydomain.com”, and registered nameservers “ns1.mydomain.com” and “ns2.mydomain.com” with the external ip address of home. I then changed the nameservers of the domain to these 2 nameservers.

I created a virtual server in Virtualmin with the domain name of “mydomain.com” and added 2 “A records” to the DNS records, (“ns1” and “ns2”), both with my external ip address.

After 72 hours I still can’t access from the internet. I’ve tried from outside my internal network, and I’ve tried going through a proxy server from both inside and outside of my network.

Running “hostname” and “hostname -f” both return “ns1.mydomain.com”.

I’m sure it’s something stupid on my part, but I can’t seem to figure out what I missing. Thanks in advance for any help you can give me.

Any number of things -
Name server running on your machine?
Firewall open on your machine for port 53?
Forwarding port 53 to your server through your home firewall?

Is your home IP static? If not it could change any time?

Those would be the first things.

Got it!

I forgot to forward port 53 in my router. All is working as expected now.

Thanks for the help!