DNS Cluster questions on setup, redundancy and multiple servers

[iso99]

Hi guys,

I'm planning to setup DNS cluster on my server but after reading articles and forum posts, I haven't found answers to some of my questions yet. Here you go:

1. Can you setup up more than 2 nameservers for the DNS clusters. I wanted to have at least three locations for my DNS servers. 1 = Primary server (SERVER-A), and the two remaining will only have cPanel DNSONLY installed (DNS-1 & DNS-2).

2. If I am going to have another cPanel/WHM server, that means I'll have two servers now (SERVER-A and SERVER-B), is it possible to use the same DNS servers I setup before (DNS-1 and DNS-2)? So the two DNSONLY servers will be catering to DNS requests of both cPanel/WHM servers.

3. How does DNS cluster actually help if I decided to migrate the data of SERVER-A to a new server (SERVER-C)?

4. SERVER-A is actually a live server. If I decided to do a DNS cluster today, all I have to do is change the nameservers IP in my domain registrar, right? Will these incur any downtime?

Thank you very much.

 

[Travis]

1. Can you setup up more than 2 nameservers for the DNS clusters. I wanted to have at least three locations for my DNS servers. 1 = Primary server (SERVER-A), and the two remaining will only have cPanel DNSONLY installed (DNS-1 & DNS-2).

Yes you can there are may out there that use multiple DNSONLY server in a setup.

2. If I am going to have another cPanel/WHM server, that means I'll have two servers now (SERVER-A and SERVER-B), is it possible to use the same DNS servers I setup before (DNS-1 and DNS-2)? So the two DNSONLY servers will be catering to DNS requests of both cPanel/WHM servers.

This is exactly what DNSONLY was designed for. You can setup multiple servers and have them use the same DNSONLY machines.

3. How does DNS cluster actually help if I decided to migrate the data of SERVER-A to a new server (SERVER-C)?

If you migrate the data, during the transfer process, Server-C will tell Server-A to make the changes on the DNSONLY machine.

4. SERVER-A is actually a live server. If I decided to do a DNS cluster today, all I have to do is change the nameservers IP in my domain registrar, right? Will these incur any downtime?

The only downtime you will incur will come from DNS propagation. This is assuming you have the DNS records setup correctly on the DNSONLY machine.

 

[iso99]

Thanks Travis for the quick reply!

May I know how will I achieve this "Server-C will tell Server-A to make the changes on the DNSONLY machine."? Will these be done automatically or should I make some manual configurations/button clicks?

 

[hgrg]

I guess as part of the transfer process the dns zones on server A are going to change and server is going to send a notification about this change to all machines in the cluster.. ..they receive the notification and download the zones from server a again..