I am not sure I am following the question or more specifically the assumption apparently being made here. It almost sounds like you may possibly have DNS being provided by a 3rd party DNS server confused with clustering which is not even remotely close to the same thing.
DNS standalone, master / slave, or as a clustered configuration which is basically, where the DNS server operates as both a master to the domains it serves as well as a slave replication server to the domains served by other DNS server members of the cluster, is all essentially the same and only really differs in how the DNS server is configured to operate.
In all of the above examples, you would need your DNS server still operating (whether that be BIND or NSD) else your domains would not be able to be resolved correctly. A clustered server still has to receive incoming zone transfers from a master server and likewise send out it's own notifies and zone updates to other cluster server members.
In the case of having all your domains handled by a 3rd party DNS server entirely where there is no slave mirroring and / or clustering involved then "no" you would not need a DNS server such as BIND running per say but I really would not recommend that sort of setup as you would create a substantial amount of extra work for you managing your domains.
DNS standalone, master / slave, or as a clustered configuration which is basically, where the DNS server operates as both a master to the domains it serves as well as a slave replication server to the domains served by other DNS server members of the cluster, is all essentially the same and only really differs in how the DNS server is configured to operate.
In all of the above examples, you would need your DNS server still operating (whether that be BIND or NSD) else your domains would not be able to be resolved correctly. A clustered server still has to receive incoming zone transfers from a master server and likewise send out it's own notifies and zone updates to other cluster server members.
In the case of having all your domains handled by a 3rd party DNS server entirely where there is no slave mirroring and / or clustering involved then "no" you would not need a DNS server such as BIND running per say but I really would not recommend that sort of setup as you would create a substantial amount of extra work for you managing your domains.
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In case of cPanel DNS clustering you will have to keep BIND or NSD services running. Generally, DNS Clustering allows you to keep DNS records synchronized across multiple servers.
For example,
ns1.example.com + ns2.example.com - 1st server
ns3.example.com + ns4.example.com - 2nd Server
In this case, if you make any change in the 1st server then the updates will automatically synchronized to other server. You do not need to do any manually updates on 2nd server.
So the DNS services of 1st server should be running.
Thanks!
For example,
ns1.example.com + ns2.example.com - 1st server
ns3.example.com + ns4.example.com - 2nd Server
In this case, if you make any change in the 1st server then the updates will automatically synchronized to other server. You do not need to do any manually updates on 2nd server.
So the DNS services of 1st server should be running.
Thanks!
Eh... So I have 2 servers just for DNS, they run cPanel's DNS Only control panel.
All the shared servers have it setup to sync DNS over to them, but I still don't understand why bind actually has to run on the shared servers, nobody is doing lookups on those boxes.
The boxes themselves are doing lookups on the boxes!
(I thought that was abundantly clear with all the posts above but apparently not
)Why would the boxes be doing local lookups on that box? The nameservers for the domains hosted are DNS servers on the cPanel DNS servers, not each shared server.The boxes themselves are doing lookups on the boxes!
(I thought that was abundantly clear with all the posts above but apparently not
I have bind disabled on my shared servers. I have three servers setup as nameservers and and all dns functions are handled by those three servers. The shared servers are configured to synchronize changes with the primary nameserver and that nameserver updates the second and third nameservers. I have never had any problems with this setup.
Hello,
Sorry to reply in an old thread, but it's a question where cPanel should have at least a guide for "Best Practices when using Clustering" and that should mention 'why'/'why not' to run bind on local server and it's consequences.
- Vijay
Sorry to reply in an old thread, but it's a question where cPanel should have at least a guide for "Best Practices when using Clustering" and that should mention 'why'/'why not' to run bind on local server and it's consequences.
- Vijay
Hi Vijay. We have published a DNS Clustering Guide here: Guide to DNS Cluster Configuration
Information about using BIND vs. NSD appears on the Nameserver Selection screen in WHM. Let me know if I am misunderstanding your request.
Thanks and have a great day!
Information about using BIND vs. NSD appears on the Nameserver Selection screen in WHM. Let me know if I am misunderstanding your request.
Thanks and have a great day!
I'm sitting with the same problem. Why do we actually need BIND running on the web servers when using separate DNS-only clusters? There's absolutely no reason for BIND to run on the webserver and just adds extra unnecesarry load to the servers.
cPanelMelanie, can you please explain this in more detail? The link provided doesn't actually answer this question.
cPanelMelanie, can you please explain this in more detail? The link provided doesn't actually answer this question.
The short of the long: you don't. As long as you have working off-server resolvers setup, then there is no need to run Bind to act as a caching DNS server either.
I would concur with garrettp here on this one. If you do not wish to run bind locally, then that is an acceptable setup so long as the off-server resolvers are working and your off server nameservers are working.
Even when named is stopped in WHM > Service Manager for monitor and enabled, the zone files are still created by cPanel in /var/named locally, then pushed to the clustered nameserver(s), so you will still have the local zone files that are needed by cPanel in some instances. I just tested this to ensure that the zone files were created locally for accounts when I took named offline from running.
Even when named is stopped in WHM > Service Manager for monitor and enabled, the zone files are still created by cPanel in /var/named locally, then pushed to the clustered nameserver(s), so you will still have the local zone files that are needed by cPanel in some instances. I just tested this to ensure that the zone files were created locally for accounts when I took named offline from running.