New VPS, Configuring Private Nameservers

nameserver,centos,vps,godaddy,domain

[johnhalbert]

I'm getting lost setting up private nameservers for my new VPS. I think I have things set up correctly, but I'm uncertain & not sure how I could test it.

My domain is registered at GoDaddy, so what I've done is added ns1 and ns2 A records to the dns manager that point at IP's 1 & 2 of my host respectively. After that I set up ns1 & ns2 in the host summary section of the domain control panel.

This is where I'm a bit lost - am I finished? Is there another step I need to take and can I verify that the nameservers are set up correctly?

Thanks in advance for the help.

[netguy]

If you are using the WHM cPanel, check to see that the DNS name is listed in the DNS Zone (Seeo"DNS Functions"), then test your VPS nameserver function by using: [whatsmydns.net...] (enter the nameserver domain name - not IP). That will tell you whether various parts of the world are able to access your server. Another helpful tool for checking your VPS configuration is using [intodns.com...]

[brotherhood of LAN]

Welcome to the forums johnhalbert,

Yes the process is essentially in two parts:
1) pointing your domain to your web server
2) configuring your web server to list to requests for that domain

If you have provided the correct nameservers in step 1 then that part is done.

For step 2, as netguy says there are admin interfaces like cpanel that take some of the raw file scariness out of the process, and may be easier depending on your preference. If your web server is apache it's just a case of editing the apache2.conf file to allow apache to listen for incoming requests for your host, and restart apache after your edit.

If you have your own DNS then you'll have to set up records for that domain too.

A quick and easy way to check step 2 has worked is to edit your own local 'hosts' file to point to your new server (thereby avoiding DNS lookups) so you can see that your server is responding to requests for the domain correctly.

Something like
123.123.123.123 yourdomain.com
... so requests for that domain from your local machine get sent directly to the server @ 123.123.123.123

[johnhalbert]

Thanks for the replies. I went the route of setting up the zone files on my own nameserver manually, not using WHM or other control panels.

I was confused about how to set up the domain at GoDaddy to tell the rest of the world where my nameserver is, but as I found through a little trial & error, that's handled exclusively from the host summary section of the domain control panel at GoDaddy. After I'd added the ns1 & ns2 there, there was no need to add records to the zone file at GoDaddy & all I had to do was set the nameservers at GoDaddy to ns1.mydomain.com and ns2.mydomain.com.