[Newbie] cPanel Post Installation Configuration Help

[kogare]

Hi,
I just installed cPanel trial version on CentOS 6.2, I'm having difficulties in configuring my first cPanel Server especially in Nameservers section. I'm very glad if someone could help me in configuring cPanel but please bear with me if I made mistakes in my typo since my first language isn't English.

Firstly, when I installed my cPanel, I follow these steps one by one (Installation Guides) and I also used (Advanced Options: Pre-Installation) provided. I receive 3 public IPs from my datacenter : 1.1.1.10, 1.1.1.11, 1.1.1.12 with 1.1.1.1 as the gateway and 1.1.0.1, 1.1.0.2 are the DNS. I already bought a domain ONLY incase I need it for this setup, let's say the domain name is thisdomain.com.

Secondly, after cPanel installed on my server, I accessed WHM via https://IP:2087 and it took me to configuration wizard. Logged in with root and I continue to Step 1 clicked agree and in Step 2, where I begin to see where my problem is, the description is very clear until I reach Server Hostname field. In my understanding I have to put FQDN in the field so I change my default hostname when I installing CentOS from localhost.localdomain to caniuse.thisdomain.com. After that I fill the first and second resolver with DNS IPs given to me from datacenter, 1.1.0.1 and 1.1.0.2. Remember when I say 'problem' above, it's not a problem until I found 'Change Hostname' option in WHM later on.

After I finish the second step, I complete the third step flawlessly and then went on to the next step where I feel very uneasy whether I enter the configuration correctly or not. Actually the description is very straight forward, I put ns1.thisdomain.com into Nameserver 1 and ns2.thisdomain.com into Nameserver 2. I add 'A' Entry for both my nameserver ns1.thisdomain.com = 1.1.1.11 and ns2.thisdomain.com = 1.1.1.12 and 'A' Entry for my host name = 1.1.1.10. Before I clicked next, I read somewhere that I need to go to domain registrar before they will work. So I went to domain registrar where I bought my domain (not listed in the guide), I select configure domain, I choose create private nameserver for this domain (I believe this is the same one with the one mentioned in the guide), I fill ns1.thisdomain.com in the nameserver name, add one of my IP (1.1.1.11) and the second one ns2.thisdomain.com with IP (1.1.1.12). I click next on the configuration wizard and continue with the remaining steps with I feel comfortable with, and Finish.

** Am I doing the configuration correctly or not? Please comment it.

I start playing around with the configuration after I finish the wizard. Obviously I want to create a hosting plan for my domain (thisdomain.com) so I created a Package and then I 'Create a New Account' fill the Domain with thisdomain.com. I know that I have to change my nameserver in my domain registrar to ns1.thisdomain.com and ns2.thisdomain.com so that the domain will point to my new server. I went in to cPanel belongs to thisdomain.com and put simple index.html.

And now it already almost 3 days, but I still couldn't open thisdomain.com, I tried nslookup thisdomain.com on Windows but it return DNS request timed out which I believe it should point to my server IP (1.1.1.10).
I found 'Change Hostname' option and there's an instruction 'It is important to choose a hostname that you will not be using for any account.'
** Does this mean I can't web host thisdomain.com in this server because caniuse.thisdomain.com is subsequently a subdomain of thisdomain.com? Or I need register 2 Domains, 1 ONLY for cPanel and 1 for Front End (selling web hosting, etc)?
** Is hostname just a local name so we can use random name that is not registered in domain registrar? If that the case, can use caniuse.google.com instead if its local only?

Another question is about nameservers,
** In above scenario, I put ns1.thisdomain.com with 1.1.11 and ns1.thisdomain.com with 1.1.12 with no physical server. Do I need to build 2 seperate DNS server for cPanel to actually work? Or I just need add these IPs to IP Address Pool and assign it to both nameserver that I created?

Thank you for reading my lengthy thread, I hope someone could help me with my problem.

[cPanelTristan]

Hello,

For the setup, you did setup the machine correctly other than the resolvers. I would suggest changing to using in WHM > Resolver Configuration to use Google's public resolvers:

8.8.4.4
8.8.8.8

For your other questions:

** Does this mean I can't web host thisdomain.com in this server because caniuse.thisdomain.com is subsequently a subdomain of thisdomain.com? Or I need register 2 Domains, 1 ONLY for cPanel and 1 for Front End (selling web hosting, etc)?

You can host thisdomain.com on the machine. A hostname is a subdomain off a domain on the machine, which caniuse.thisdomain.com would be.

** Is hostname just a local name so we can use random name that is not registered in domain registrar? If that the case, can use caniuse.google.com instead if its local only?

No, the hostname matters for email purposes. If you use an invalid hostname, then email providers will likely reject your emails from the server and your server will end up on blacklists.

** In above scenario, I put ns1.thisdomain.com with 1.1.11 and ns1.thisdomain.com with 1.1.12 with no physical server. Do I need to build 2 seperate DNS server for cPanel to actually work? Or I just need add these IPs to IP Address Pool and assign it to both nameserver that I created?

You'd need to ensure the IPs are on the server. If they are not already added in WHM > Show IP Address Usage area, then you'll need to add the in WHM > Add a New IP Address area.

Of note, I would highly suggest re-adding the nameserver entries to WHM > Edit a DNS Zone for thisdomain.com instead of having separate DNS zones for them. When you add the nameservers before you create the main domain, you end up with separate DNS zones for them. It's better to have them in the thisdomain.com DNS zone directly for the A record IP entries.

Thanks!

[kogare]

thank you for your fast reply. I've been tinkering around with the configuration up until now. I already add the IPs via WHM > Add a New IP Address area.
** Is there anyway to bind ns1.thisdomain.com to a certain IP, because the first nameservers always automatically receive my default root IP which is 1.1.1.10 and 1.1.1.11 for ns2.thisdomain.com? Or actually I only need 2 Public IPs to get cPanel working correctly?
** Is there anyway to do clean reinstallation of cPanel beside to reformat my server box?

Thank you.

[cPanelTristan]

You can use WHM > Basic cPanel & WHM Setup area and click "Add an A entry for this nameserver" button, which then allows you to specify the IP.

Why do you need to do a clean installation? If you reinstall cPanel on the same machine, it wouldn't be clean. Clean implies the server hasn't had cPanel on it before. You'd have to reformat the box in order for a clean install to take place.

[kogare]

Hi,
Sorry for the late reply. I resetting my server with DNS Clustering right now, I disabled BIND in my main server so I only have 2 DNS Server (seperate server with IP 1.1.1.11, 1.1.1.12). I have managed to synchronize all server, I tested it with adding new domain in my cPanel and then view the records in /var/named/ and checked if values are the same.

The problem I having now is it seems that the domain is not propagated correctly.
I tried nslookup thisdomain.com and it return me

;; reply from unexpected source: 1.1.1.1#53, expected 1.1.0.1#53
;; reply from unexpected source: 1.1.1.1#53, expected 8.8.8.8#53
;; reply from unexpected source: 1.1.1.1#53, expected 8.8.4.4#53
;; connection timed out; no servers could be reached

I wonder what I did wrong this time, your help would be most appreciate.

Thanks

[cPanelTristan]

Please provide a domain for us to check to see the results.

[kogare]

Domains I hosted on my server tetraworld.net and telcindo.com.
I'm using santana.tetraworld.net as the hostname for my server, I have also put ns1, ns2 and santana in the same domain zone. Here's the copy of /var/named/tetraworld.net.db

; cPanel first:11.32.2.28 (update_time):1338864363 Cpanel::ZoneFile::VERSION:1.3 hostname:santana.tetraworld.net latest:11.32.2.28
; Zone file for tetraworld.net
$TTL 14400
tetraworld.net. 86400 IN SOA ns1.tetraworld.net. edwin.telcindo.gmail.com. (
2012060506 ;Serial Number
86400 ;refresh
7200 ;retry
3600000 ;expire
86400 ;minimum
)
tetraworld.net. 86400 IN NS ns1.tetraworld.net.
tetraworld.net. 86400 IN NS ns2.tetraworld.net.
tetraworld.net. 14400 IN A 103.246.117.78
localhost 14400 IN A 127.0.0.1
tetraworld.net. 14400 IN MX 0 tetraworld.net.
mail 14400 IN CNAME tetraworld.net.
www 14400 IN CNAME tetraworld.net.
ftp 14400 IN A 103.246.117.78
cpanel 14400 IN A 103.246.117.78
whm 14400 IN A 103.246.117.78
webmail 14400 IN A 103.246.117.78
webdisk 14400 IN A 103.246.117.78
default._domainkey 14400 IN TXT "v=DKIM1; k=rsa; p=MHwwDQYJKoZIhvcNAQEBBQADawAwaAJhAMTQxsLCY3rrCaEwxS1RHy0nrbot+yCJJzHAXXMYK6Vp+NWqJkQF4eVVMkWcTjZtLcnLdovrBynbXTo9L/54ZbYijIX5qR/ndDiueZCNb66kgurPtKM3JlAZrW/JQCbVJQIDAQAB;"
santana 14400 IN A 103.246.117.78
ns1 14400 IN A 103.246.117.77
ns2 14400 IN A 103.246.117.83

[kogare]

Any help? Please