Stuck with DNS server setup

Hello, i a bit lost on personal DNS server setup in Virtualmin. There are many posts here and a guide on virtualim, but i am still unsure where to go further…

I have virtualmin set up on Googles VPS and have a 1 static IP for it.
I have domain.com registered at namecheap AND i (as from guide) did register nameservers under the “Advanced DNS” options, that point to said static IP (ns1.domain.com and ns2.domain.com pointing to same one IP).

Now iam unsure what i have to do next to make those name servers work?

Some guides say i need to add A record pointing to IP, but where? Edit: I added A records (ns1 nad ns2 pointing to IP) for said domain in virutalmin, but that doesnt help, nameserver still doesnt work.

I wrote about glue records on the Webmin blog a while back here: http://inthebox.webmin.com/dns-for-web-hosting-glue-records

It sounds like you’ve setup the glue records based on the steps you’ve taken, but it also sounds like glue records aren’t working. Working through that guide might help sort out where it went wrong. I don’t remember if Google allows DNS requests through their firewall to compute instances…you might double check to make sure you can even reach port 53 on that server.

Thanks for the link to guide, that will come in handy for sure!

I have a feeling i do have a problem with that 53 port, but as far as i understand i can add custom firewall rules to my google cloud instance, since i did add tcp:10000 so i can access the virtualmin cp. So i may be able to add that 53 port too, but i cant find any info what type of port it is? Since tcp parameter with 53 port didnt seem to solve my problems. Maybe you know what type of port it is?

DNS is usually UDP, though it will fallback to TCP in cases where packets are large.

Thank you, that seems to be working now for the main domain.
I carried out the tests in your blog post and all seems to be fine, now also domain that is used for nameservers also works and can be used to acess the virtualmin.

But there seems to be problem somewhere with virtualmin since when i create new virtual server with another domain, and try to access it on web it doesnt work, i just get “ERR_NAME_NOT_RESOLVED” in chrome. I ofc did add my new ns1 and ns2 name server at domains registar, so i guess there is a problem at virtualmin side, maybe something to do with default server templates? But then why the domain that is used for nameservers work and its web site can be accessed?

A bit lost where to look now.

[EDIT]: When i do dig command on domain i use as name server, i get this message:
WARNING: recursion requested but not available
everything else seems ok (when i compere it to guide on internet). Is that message something that would be the cause of my problems?

EDIT2: i somehow got the other domain working, but www. and other similar zones doesnt work still.

This sounds like you havent actually got your nameservers working correctly. Your main domain is getting its dns from registrar…hence it is working.

Are you sure your nameserver is really resolving?

I have had no problems with a virtualmin nameserver and secondry nameserver working. I dont use those 2 additional nameservers anymore…for me right now, its too much stuffing around looking after dns to prevent security breaches.

In my opinion, unless you plan on webhosting many dozens or hundreds of websites, you do not need to setup nameservers…use the domain registrars free dns…if registrar doesnt offer free dns, get rid of them and move domain to a new one who does).

I have 3 google cloud setups running ispconfig, vestacp & virtualmin. All 3 are working no problems using my domain registrars own dns for the primary domain and subdomains for each. I have also had them resolving from my virtualmin nameservers no problems (when i was using them).

Your nameserver question is only the start of your journey with google cloud compute, have you got email working from google cloud yet? You cannot use port 25,465, or 587. They are permanently blocked (there is an exception for 587 but only if you use google suite if i remember correctly). To host email, you have to use a 3rd party email relay host (i use sendgrid), or have another vps on a network which does not block email ports.

Thanks for replay.
Nope i have not yet started to deal with email part (have not even tested them), but i guess i got the answer of that test from you already.

If i may ask, is it possible to host 2-3 separate domains (2-3 separate/diffrent websites) on single google compute unit running virtualmin and webmin, WITHOUT setting up my own dns server and just using registers provided one?
Iam with not dealing with all this hassle of setting it up, but i just assumed i will need it to host a few websites.

Hi Joe,
I tried the http://inthebox.webmin.com/dns-for-web-hosting-glue-records link and it’s coming up broken. Do you have this information available elsewhere? I’m trying to setup of Virtualmin installation to host a few websites on an AWS Lightsail instance. I have the primary domain that Virtualmin exists on working fine, but I know things are misconfigured in there with the DNS. Perhaps a dumb question, but if I signed up for Virtualmin Pro, could I get DNS configuration support? Any assistance would be appreciated!
Thanks, Dan

The blog’s been neglected for a long time, and I guess it stopped working at some point. I’ve brought it back up and updated it as best I can quickly…will migrate it to something static, like Hugo, when I’ve got some spare time, maybe this weekend, so it’ll be more reliable (static websites are nearly impossible to break!).

Thank you for the timely reply! I’ll dig into this and try to resolve my DNS issues.

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