Setting up new domain account dedicated server and pointing namerservers, A records etc.?

[nrider321]

Hi,

I have a dedicated server with root ip address and a few extra ip. The root domain name is just a placeholder name and not linked to any registered domains at this time. I do not intend to have a live site at the root domain anyways as I read several places that would be a bad idea. So as an example the root domain for is rootdomain.com and at the moment is has ns1.rootdomain.com ip 1.2.3.1 and ns2.rootdomain.com 1.2.3.2.

What I would like to do is create an account thenewdomain.com in WHM on say ip 1.2.3.3 with the correct domain name of a domain I have registered at a domain registrar. I am really confused as to the best way to get the domain at point A to link to the ip on the dedicated server. From what I understand it could be as simple as just logging into registrar and changing the A record to match 1.2.3.3 ip. What would need to be done in WHM/Cpanel after this. Would I have to enter the any registrar info (nameservers) somewhere in server dns settings?

From understand the other method is to use the servers private nameservers and enter these at the domain registrar. As I pointed out the root domain name is just a placeholder name and not a registered domain linked to anything. If this did not matter and I entered the ns1 and ns2 at domain registrar, I still don't see how this would link to the server ip. Would I still be creating a A record? Also at first glance at the domain registrar it asks for nameserver but only seems to give the option to enter the name and not also the actual ip of ns1 and ns2.

So any info would be greatly appreciated,

Thanks.

 

[cPanelMichael]

Hello

You can only create name servers at the registrar for domain names that you have control of. Thus, you would have to create the name servers for the domain name that you are creating the account for with IP addresses added to your server. Then, on the cPanel server, modify the default name servers used in the DNS Zones of new accounts via:

"WHM Home » Server Configuration » Basic cPanel & WHM Setup"

You can also add the "A" records for these name servers through this interface.

Note: The advice to not use a real domain name for your server's hostname is not accurate. Your hostname should be valid and resolve to an IP address associated with your server. It should not be a standalone domain name, or one you plan to create an account for, but instead a subdomain of such a domain name. EX:

server.your-hosting-domain.com

Thank you.

 

[nrider321]

Thank you very much Michael for the detailed response. Can you tell me if the following is correct then?

1) So I register the domain I want, and then change the A record at registrar to point to the ip of the server.. this being the ip assigned to the new cpanel domain account created through whm.

2) Then if I wish to not use the domain registrars namesevers, I can setup my own private nameserver in WHM which must include the same domain name I registered as the actual name..ex. ns1.actualregistereddomain.com. I can then assign some of the extra ip addresses I have as A records or some third party ip for redundancy should the actual server go down.

3) Regarding the placeholder domain name..basically at the time of getting the server, I didn't know exactly what registered domain that I had was going to used for production site..so made up a placeholder name. I had read afterwards that it was not necessarily a good idea to host a production site on the root ip and so my plan instead of changing hostname or root ip to a registered domain didn't seem necessary since I have extra ip addresses.

Instead I thought I would just to create the new cpanel account (for registered domain) with one of the extra ip addresses I have with the server package. Do you think this is a bad idea to leave the hostname setup the way it is even though I am looking to run actual production site on the other available ip addresses?

Should I just rename it to server1.actualregistereddomain.com even though that registered domain live site is running on a different server ip?

If you would answer these new questions I would again really appreciate it.

Thank you.

 

[cPanelMichael]

1. Yes, this is fine for the first step, but changing the "A" record at the registrar is not necessary unless you want it to resolve before updating your name servers.

2. This is accurate, except using an IP address from another server is only recommended if you have configured a DNS cluster.

3. It's fine to assign an account to the main shared IP address of the server. It's important to use a real hostname so that services such as email are not adversely effected when mail is sent to remote servers. That being said, the hostname should not be a subdomain that you are hosting. Thus, it's fine to use 123.host.name as your hostname, even if host.name is created as an account. However, you would not want to use 123.host.name as your hostname if 123.host.name was added as an account.

Thank you.

 

[nrider321]

Great thank you.