Can I hide my domains from a reverse-IP look-up of domains on a shared server?

[candyoff]

Hi

I have 20 domains hosted in a shared server.

The name servers I have are
(example)
a, ns330.Example.com
b, ns331.Example.com

A reverse dns lool-up shows all 20 of my sites included others sites are listed.

People will able to find out which are my sites using this method.

Can I know how can I hide that?

Regards

[edited by: Webwork at 8:00 pm (utc) on Nov. 22, 2006]
[edit reason] No hosting drops please. Thank you. [/edit]

[gregbo]

If I understand your question correctly, just don't create PTR records that point to the domain names.

[equalm]

Concur. You have to go out of your way to setup a reverse IP pointer in DNS. For some ISP's, the reverse IP address will resolve to something in their server nomencalture, ie. 65-53-32-40.reverse.to.someisp.net

[jtara]

I am confused about what you want.

Are you concerned that people will be able to use a reverse lookup to identify you? Or to identify your hosting provider?

Normally, the IP address belongs to your hosting provider, or perhaps to a larger ISP that your hosting provider gets services from, or to a data center where your hosting provider is located. They will typically have set-up reverse DNS to point-back to a subdomain of theirs that resolves to your IP address.

If you WANT reverse DNS to point to YOUR domain name, typically you have to ASK them to do this - they don't typically do this automatically.

If you are sending email from the domain, you almost certainly DO want them to set-up the reverse to point to your domain, as many SMTP servers will reject email when the reverse does not resolve back to the same domain name.

If you do NOT want people to be able to identify your hosting provider, you've got a more difficult problem. It is unlikely you will convince your hosting provider to actually delegate the IP to you. They will set-up the PTR record, but they want people to find them in case of abuse. You could supply your own IP address(s), but you will probably have an equally-difficult time convincing any hosting provider to allow you to use your own IPs unless you are a very big and reputable site.

[jmccormac]

Well that's how the DNS is meant to work. You could probably hide domains on other nameservers but anyone building an IP based list of websites would be able to map all domains on a shared IP. The sites that provide this kind of data just map the IPs of the websites. So the simplest way to obscure your sites is to use domains in TLDs that these sites don't cover (eg: .co.uk, .uk, .de etc).

Regards...jmcc