DNS in a 2nd non cpanel server

[asmar]

Hello all,

I was wondering if there is a way to have the DNS running from another server without cpanel on it. Just a plain OS installation with Bind.

When a reseller add a new domain then is it possible somehow to communicate with the non cpanel dns and update the records?

Any help is much appretiate.

Thanks a lot

[lankyb]

cPanel has the option just to install DNS only, you can see for yourself here: http://layer1.cpanel.net/

Here are some installation commands that should work. I simply adapted the main installation to the one needed to just install DNS Only:

mkdir /home/cpdnsonlyins
cd /home/cpdnsonlyins
wget http://layer1.cpanel.net/cpanel-universal-dnsonly-install.sea
sh cpanel-universal-dnsonly-install.sea

[asmar]

Hi lankyb,

This is not what I want. I am trying to avoid paying the extra license just to have the DNS.

Thanks

[lankyb]

Your going to have to install BIND on its own then, i think this is the website: http://www.isc.org/index.pl?/sw/bind/

[richy]

As far as I can tell, the "nameserver only" version of cPanel does not require licencing. However, it will only act as a "slave" nameserver - it does not have account creation, dns zone creation/modification etc etc.

[chirpy]

Indeed, it is free and as richy says, it is quite limited, but it does provide you with a slave DNS which automatically updates. Otherwise, you'll just have to go the traditional route with a DNS master/slave setup where you have to manually create the zone entries in named.conf on the slave, unless you do some scripting to copy over the master and reconfigure it as a slave.

[asmar]

What about if I point ns1 to a US server and ns2 to a UK server and then by using rsync copy all the dns records to each one and reload bind every few minutes or hours?

What I need to figure is how I will be able to add a new domain as a reseller for example under cpanel when in this cpanel server will not be enabled dns. Insteed it will be enabled only in the other 2 servers where both aren't use cpanel.

Sorry to ask again but I am little bit confused. I want to avoid using cpanel at all in my DNS setup but have the ability for my clients to add/modify their domain details via cpanel.
Am I asking too much?

Thanks in advance

[chirpy]

There's no need to rsync the zone files as DNS will do that as part of a normal master/slave relationship (you should read up on how to set that up if you don't know - google is your friend there). The manual part, as I mentioned would be to add the actual zone entries to /etc/named.conf. You cannot simply just copy over a named.conf from the master to the slave, as you'll see when you check how to setup a master/slave nameserver relationship.

[asmar]

Thanks a lot Jonathan for your answer.
What is anyway the ideal DNS setup if you have a few cpanel and many non cpanel servers?
Any suggestions?

Thanks

[chirpy]

A lot depends on who controls the DNS entries. Since handling DNS in cPanel is so simple, if you have two DNS servers in separate NOCs, I'd be tempted to just cluster those two to handle all the DNS zones for all the domains on all servers.

[asmar]

A lot depends on who controls the DNS entries. Since handling DNS in cPanel is so simple, if you have two DNS servers in separate NOCs, I'd be tempted to just cluster those two to handle all the DNS zones for all the domains on all servers.

Should I have ns1 to point in server1 and ns2 to point in server2 or both in the same server and just cluster them?

Thanks

[chirpy]

ns1 points to one server, ns2 points to a different server, then cluster them and select the options to sync all zones between both servers.

[asmar]

After a few more research here is what I finally think that it's best to do.

set up ns1 as master with cpanel on it (VPS) - UK
set up ns2 DNS ONLY VERSION on a 2nd VPS smaller - US

My questions are:

Will I be able to add the ns2 in the cluster and synchronize the records from there?
As far as I know you don't have any panel in the DNS only version. Do I need just to point the ns2 (DNS only version) IP to the main master dns (ns1 vps and obviously in my registrar)?

In case of a downtime in ns1 server, is it going to work the DNS only version and serve the requests from there?

Thanks

[chirpy]

Hi,

1. I think that you may have to do that from the normal cPanel server, but I don't recall

2. You have a WHM login on the DNS ONLY version with much reduced functionality

3. Yes, you would need to change the IP addresses at your registrar for your nameservers pointing on to one servers IP and the other to the others servers IP. You would also need to update the zone file for the domain that the ns1/ns2 A records are on to point to the correct IP addresses

4. Yes, if either nameserver becomes unavailable the other will be available to server DNS requests for your domains

[asmar]

This DNS only version is going to freak me out....

I've installed it ok but now I cannot find any script to generate the remote access key in order to add the server to the cluster.

The setrhash script doesn't exist under /scripts and also no apache or port 2087 is available (nmap gives only bind's 53 port)

You can get the Remote Access Key from
https://domain:2087/scripts/setrhash
or

Any ideas?

PS: I've just noticed that setrhash does not exist in any cpanel server via locate command. Where is the script that can produce the remote key?