Setting up a DNS

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Posted by madsmao, 02-20-2015, 11:07 AM
I am responsible for maintaining a handful of servers for a small hosting company based in Thailand. We are currently in the process of expanding our operations quite a bit, and, because of this, I am faced with a new challenge that I know very little about: Setting up and managing a DNS server. Now, I can easily follow a tutorial and set up a DNS. That's not the hard part. The hard part is knowing how to operate a primary DNS for many domains. Here are some of the things I am currently wondering about: What requirements will I face if managing a primary DNS. I mean, do I have to be approved as the manager of a primary DNS for all the domains I want to support? I know for a fact, that such an approvai is required for .dk domains, but what are the terms for other domains?We are based in Thailand, and the country heavily favours local businesses. That has me thinking that our customers will probably have a better chance at attracting customers if we also run a local DNS. But I might be entirely wrong about this, and it might be perfectly viable to use some managed DNS server, and simply private-label it and be done with it. Any thoughts?We use WHMCS and cPanel, and I would really like to integrate these tools with the DNS as tightly as possible. Any recommendations in regards to this? These are my main concerns at the moment. Any input is greatly appreciated.
Posted by lynxus, 02-20-2015, 11:20 AM
See reply above... Ive managed a large scale DNS platform for an ISP before and its not "easy" and should be thought out well. Ideally you will want X number of frontend slave servers that people use to get DNS records and a couple of backend master servers that will hold the main dns zones. You will then farm your updates to the frontend slaves. Having the DNS servers local to your traffic is indeed the best thing as its quicker for the end user to get a reply ( even if we are only talking about milliseconds.. ) Good luck.. Plenty more to learn.
Posted by Website themes, 02-20-2015, 03:07 PM
How did you get this job if you don't know how to manage servers?
Posted by madsmao, 02-20-2015, 03:27 PM
Thank you so much for your meaningful contribution to this thread... I know a lot about other aspects of my job, but I have never before had to set up and manage a DNS. Which is also why I have strongly considered using a managed DNS provided by someone else.
Posted by madsmao, 02-20-2015, 03:41 PM
As I mentioned, this is not a large scale operation yet. We are planning to expand, but I suspect we are still going to be one of the "smaller fish" for the foreseeable future. Don't you think it would be possible to start off with a less beefy setup than the one you have outlined? As for WHMCS and cPanel integration, I probably wasn't clear enough. You mention that users should be able to control DNS for their domains via some form of web control panel, and that is exactly why i want to connect the DNS with WHMCS and/or cPanel through some form of API. Can you recommend any DNS software, that you have personal experience with?
Posted by edigest, 02-20-2015, 11:15 PM
Not sure if I missed something in this thread, but if you're running WHM/CPanel you have a solution right in front of you: CPanel DNS Only Get two or more small VPSs or Cloud instances and install CPanel DNS Only. It's free. It integrates easily and cleanly with WHM. A four NS cluster will cost about $20/month (for the servers) and provide reliability for millions of lookups a month.
Posted by madsmao, 02-21-2015, 07:32 AM
You are not missing anything, it's simply me who has not been clear enough about my needs. I could of course use cPanel DNS, and I might end up doing that. I just don't like to be too tied to cPanel, and I figured that perhaps there were better solutions out there, which will also integrate better with other tools like Plesk, or whatever other fancy tools we might use in the future. Also, our customers are able to control a lot of things through the client login that we provide to them through WHMCS, and it would be awesome to let them control their DNS from there. Especially because not all our customers are shared hosting customers (who can potentially control DNS settings through cPanel), but rather VPS and dedicated server customers.
Posted by SupportGeek, 02-21-2015, 11:21 AM
Setup your primary ns locally in Thailand and secondary in another geographical location say EU or US. As you are running on cpanel the best solution will be to go with a DNS only cPanel master.

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