Question about PTR Records?

tdd1984

Member
Jul 9, 2010
8
0
51
Could someone show me an example on how to set up a PTR record. I'd imagine I just need to enter my IP address then a FQDN in the hostname field. However, not certain, but I was reading somewhere that we had to enter the IP in backwards or we could just enter the last 3 numbers of our IP. In addition, is our web hosting company able to enable us to do this our self (insert PTR records)?
 

sneader

Well-Known Member
Aug 21, 2003
1,195
68
178
La Crosse, WI
cPanel Access Level
Root Administrator
PTR records (pointer records) point IPs to a name. Only the organization that is responsible for resolution for these IPs can do the PTRs (unless they delegate that authority to someone else -- not common).

For example, I picked a random IP (52.52.52.52) and did a lookup at ARIN:

https://ws.arin.net/whois/?queryinput=52.52.52.52

As you can see, the authoritative nameservers for this IP is:

NameServer: PDNS1.ULTRADNS.NET
NameServer: PDNS2.ULTRADNS.NET
NameServer: PDNS3.ULTRADNS.ORG
NameServer: PDNS4.ULTRADNS.ORG
NameServer: PDNS5.ULTRADNS.INFO
NameServer: PDNS6.ULTRADNS.CO.UK

If you were getting your IP from this company (for example) you could not just enter a PTR record and have your problem solved. You'd have to contact this company and have them add whatever PTR DNS entry you want into their zone file for this IP range.

Now, if you tell me that your DNS is actually authoritative for your IP, then I guess we go to Plan B... but seems unlikely for a small web host.

Actually, as I re-read your question... you are not the web host, but an end user. You need to contact your web host about this. I doubt you'd have the ability to set your PTR record. Are you even sure it's your own IP, and not shared with other web hosting customers?

- Scott
 

Miraenda

Well-Known Member
Jul 28, 2004
243
5
168
Coralville, Iowa USA
cPanel Access Level
Root Administrator
If the IP authority for the IP zone has delegated authority to you for the IP zone, then you can set this up using the following FAQ:

Configuring Reverse DNS in WHM

As already noted by Scott's post, this isn't frequently the case where the IP provider has delegated actual authority to the IP zone. They do allow this sometimes, though, so that FAQ would be the steps you can use in WHM to setup the rDNS zones if they have.
 

sneader

Well-Known Member
Aug 21, 2003
1,195
68
178
La Crosse, WI
cPanel Access Level
Root Administrator
Good advice, Miraenda. That was the "Plan B" I referred to, but I suspect that this is not a likely plan. :D

- Scott