Running a nameserver with Virtualmin

Virtualmin
1

DNS is a pain in the butt for me and now I have a customer with a bunch of domains he wants to bring on.

Right now I have my main domains and one of his managed through another host who is a pain to get ahold of to change stuff.

Right now I have him forwarding the DNS to me using his nameserver, so the main domains are fine to be standalone, but in my other friends case how do I properly set up BIND to act as a dns server on for instance ns1.lostsignalnetwork.com etc, I’ve never gotten this deep into DNS, so if anyone can give me some instructions and some insight I’d really appreciate it.

2

Don’t know if this helps or not, because it doesn’t really address your question, but I am in the same boat with bind/DNS. I understand the DNS concepts pretty well, but didn’t want to have to deal with Bind’s text based configuration files. I guess the Webmin GUI helps with that, but anyway…

I have an alternate solution:

I use www.sitelutions.com to manage my DNS (it’s free and they also support dynamic DNS for free). I can register my domains wherever I want (though I’ve choosen to use Sitelutions and highly recommend them), but upon registration I point all of my domains to Sitelution’s name servers. Then, I am not dependent on a registrar to make changes, and can make changes at will through Sitelution’s web-based DNS front end. In the 10 years or so I have been using Sitelutions, their DNS service has never been down, and their management interface was down once.

Using Sitelutions offers several advantages:

  1. I can make changes at will through a browser (anywhere with internet access) without being dependent on access to the registrar/their tech support, etc.
  2. I can set the TTL on my records very low so that I can "instantly" change an IP/CName, etc.
  3. I can (at the registrar) "create" ns(x).mydomain.com then point them to ns(x).sitelutions.com. That makes it appear as if I run my own nameservers, yet still have everything on Sitelutions
  4. I can point my A Records to my Virtualmin Server, and change it whenever I want (or even run Virtualmin on my dynamic connection and have my hostname at Sitelutions updated automatically)
  5. Should my server go down for any reason I haven’t lost my DNS server (since it is handled on geo-redundant servers at Sitelutions) - I simply set up another server/put my backup on line, then change the DNS records at Sitelutions and my server is “back” up

Anyway, I don’t work for Sitelutions even if it sounds like I do, but I do HIGHLY recommend their services!

OK, if I haven’t sold you on Sitelutions, and you want to move forward with BIND on Webmin/Virtualmin, can you explain in more detail:

how do I properly set up BIND to act as a dns server on for instance ns1.lostsignalnetwork.com etc,
Do you mean that your client's (example) domain is lostsignalnetwork.com, and you want to set up ns1.lostsignalnetwork.com and ns2.lostsignalnetwork.com then point those to your server (and a geo-separated backup) which is running BIND, or what exactly are you asking?

If that is the case, it is done through your registrar. You associate ns1.lostsignalnetwork.com and ns2.lostsignalnetwork.com at the registrar where you (or your client) registered lostsignalnetwork.com by associating the names with the IP addresses of your server and backup server. How this is operation is actually carried out depends on the registrar, but usually isn’t too difficult to figure out. Once this is done, all of the authoritative resolution for your A records, CNames, hostnames, MX records, etc. get shuffled off to your server and backup server, so you don’t have to change anything else at the domain registrar.

If you have questions I’ll do my best to answer them, but no promises. I’ve been a Windows sysadmin forever, but am very new to Linux.

3

The domain name server records for one domain are stored in a “zone” file. Most zone’s records are served by two machines… a “master” and a “slave” dns machine.

An "A" record is the "main" record… it directs your domain name to the correct IP address so computers can find your site on the internet… so, it might look like this:
my.domain.com 62.134.256.7
domain.com 62.134.256.7

a "cname" record is like an "alias", it points one domain name to another, "real" domain name… these are often used as cname records:
ftp.domain.com domain.com
www.domain.com domain.com

and MX record is a record to the mail server… similar to A records.
mail.domain.com domain.com

and a reverse pointer points the ip back at the domain name for lookups…
62.134.256.7 domain.com

And setting it up in webmin was a total snap… just open the the DNS server, add a “master zone”, then add the records I listed above. Then go to the slave server and add a “slave” zone. input the ip address of the master dns machine for the zone, click on “Apply Zone”, and you’re pretty much up. Whatever you do, don’t use any cname records of any kind within an MX record… just trust me on that unless you like infinite recursions and other problems with stabbing chest pains and such.

The only time I’ve manually touched the zone file since installing webmin/virtualmin was because I had a serial number synch problem, but if that’s the worst thing that happens with the servers this week who can complain?

4

I confirmed what Acorp said about sitelution, last week I have a problem with my free account, it was my mistake, but they offer immediatly support and solved my problem in minutes.
I’ve installed slave dns plugin on my virtualmin, but couldn’t mange to understand how it is configure corectly:

I want to use ns sitelution server as master dns and my virtualmin as secondary, or viceversa, an ideea how to manage my domains on single click. All that pain in but situation is because my virtualmin server is behind nat, and when I’m behind it and try to access my www.example.com doesn’t work, even with port fowarding rule created on firewall…What I want to do is to use virtualmin dns server in my lan. the same time I use ns sitelutions server on internet.

Maybe Acorp, give me an ideea about this situation

5

You’re aware that this thread is two years old, right? :slight_smile:

If your nameserver is behind a NAT, you need to forward UDP and TCP port 53 from your router, and use the external IP address (which is hopefully static - if not, you should rely on an external DNS completely. Setting up a slave DNS on a NAT with dynamic IPs WILL be too much of a pain for you if you’re not really an expert in these matters) in any configuration you need to do on the master to be aware of your slave.

6

Yes I know this thread is two years old.
Where my virtualmin is installed I have a static ip, but even I port foward dns my nat router doesn’t support NAT redirection, and to access www.example.com from inside my LAN PC I must have an internat DNS Server. For that I prefer to use DNS server on virtualmin, because when I creat an virtual domain , virtulmin creates an entry on dns server.
I wantt to use redirection, a better control of virtual domain: redirection, domain parcking, etc.