DNS Clustering HowTo needed

[marius]

Is there anyone who made it willing to post a small howto regarding the dns clustering?

For one, I have 1 capanel server with ns1 and ns2 on it.
Right now we want to add 2 other capnel servers but we want to have only 2 dns servers only and having the current cpanel server keeping its dns on the dedicated dns servers.

Searched the forums and no one here knows how to do it..it seems. Except some guys that said they solved it but didn't post how they did it.

 

[chirpy]

You need to run DNS on the other servers (for synchronizing) but don't need to register them as nameservers with your registrar (and can switch of recursion and transfer, except between the servers).

We do this (clustering) with our servers, 2 are used for DNS, the others run DNS, but aren't registered and so just run for clustering so that we don't have to worry about DNS when we add new domains to a non (registered) DNS server.

 

[marius]

step by step

so.. let's see if i get it right.

what i have - 1 cpanel server that has ns1.domain1.tld and ns2.domain1.tld (and all 250 domains are set up with this dns.

what i want - 3 cpanel servers with 2 separate dns servers only (by the way.. dns only it is free right?). first dns only machine(call it dns1) to have ns1.domain2.tld and 2nd dns machine (call it dns2) to have ns2.domain2.tld. all the domains that i'll set on my cpanel servers will have ns1.domain2.tld and ns2.domain2.tld. no matter on what of the 3 cpanel servers i set the new accounts, that cpanel server will send to dns1 and to dns2 the changes. this way if dns1 or dns2 is down, the other will function normaly and everybody is happy.


1. get two machines, install dns only server on both.
2. on dns1 set up the 3 cpanel servers as sync and dns2 as stand alone
3. on dns2 set up the 3 cpanel servers as sync and dns1 as stand alone
4. on all 3 cpanel servers set up dns1 and dns2 as sync
5. syncronize cpanel server1 (the one that allready has 250 domains on it) with dns1 and dns2 machines.

- at this point i have 2 dns only machines with all the zones from cpanel server1 and 3 cpanel servers (one with 250 domains on it, others with none)

6. modify all the dns settings for those 250 domains from ns1.domain1.tls and ns2.domain1.tld to ns1.domain2.tld and ns2.domain2.tld (or i could leave them just like that and modify it in time)

if i do all this.. do i have a small (3cpanel) network working right?

 

[chirpy]

Yes to everything Personally, I set them all to sync. I also select one as the primary (ns1) and have all the others sync with it and it to sync with them. Then you can use ns1 and ns2 (the two nameservers).

I would add that DNS usually doesn't add much load to your servers at all. I wouldn't bother getting 2 new servers, just use 2 of the 3 existing cPanel servers for DNS as well. Up to you, of course.

 

[eleven2]

How would I want to do this with only 2 server?

 

[chirpy]

Just set them both to synchronize with each other as part of a cluster. You just need to select one and set that up and then add the other one to it and set both to synchronize with each other (which means setting that option on both servers after they're in a DNS cluster).

 

[lloyd_tennison]

A question on this.

How often is the data sysnced?


Thanks in advance.

 

[SprintSlash]

I believe that each domain is sync'ed immediately whenever a change is made.

 

[Servia]

Is it possible to synchronize server with cpanel to server without cpanel.
I have one server running cpanel and being ns1. The other name server (ns2) doens't have cpanel installed. Can I somehow synchronize these servers in a way that when I create account, the ns2 zones are updated too. Currently I have to add the new zones to named.conf by hand to the ns2.

 

[torwill]

you might want to check this,

http://layer1.cpanel.net/

Latest WHM for DNS SERVERS ONLY installer:
cpanel-universal-dnsonly-install.sea (Sun Oct 10 10:36:36 2004)

 

[chirpy]

Be careful if you install the cPanel DNS ONLY installer - it does makes a lot of changes to your server, including installing its preferred version of apache (at least it used to).

You can usually achieve this sort of thing by copying the master named.conf to the secondary and then synching the changes in both using a script. If a little thought you can also simply copy named.conf from the master to the secondary server, but care is needed.

 

[Servia]

Does anyone have a script which would do this?
Some practical advices and tips would be appreciated.

 

[Servia]

So, is this "WHM for DNS SERVERS ONLY" free or does it cost something?

 

[bormo]

So one more question - I have some servers with cPanel/WHM and Virtuozzo/cPamel/WHM

I want to open 2 VPS on different HW servers and install DNS Only on both and connect all another servers/VPSs to this 2 DNS

How can I build cluster in this case?

ns1 sync to ns2
srv1..n sync to ns1? or ns2? or to both?

Which NSs I need to config on srv1..n in cPanel Setup?

Thank you!