Hello, I recently decided that I have had enough of bouncing from reseller to reseller and dealing with nothing but problem after problem, not to mention them selling out to other companies constantly, etc, so I purchased my first dedicated server and will be moving all of my accounts (10-15) over to it as soon as possible.

The server package I got comes with WHM / Cpanel already installed, 14 IPs, etc... For the most part, it looks pretty straight forward. I'm farmilliar with WHM and Cpanel which pretty much do everything for you, however the main problem I am having is setting up my initial DNS settings.

I've searched the net and found a few good write ups, but here is my problem, please tell me if I am doing this right or make suggestions..

To start I logged into my WHM on the new dedicated machine, and created an account for my primary domain (the domain that will also host the nameservers (cdecker.com).

I then clicked on "Nameserver Setup" under the Service Configuration menu and got that started and running.

I then went to "manage Nameserver IP's" under the Server Setup menu, and tried adding NS1.CDECKER.COM and clicking assign. The response I got back was "Sorry, the nameserver NS1.CDECKER.COM already has the ip 216.10.20.236 assigned to it." which is the IP of my nameserver on my old reseller account. Does the IP have to be changed for the nameserver with my registrar first?? If thats the case, wont all my accounts currently pointing to NS1 and NS2.cdecker.com go dead once I change those IP's? Is there a way around that, like to get everything setup on the new machine, basically just mirroring my reseller account and then switching the IP's for the nameservers over at the registrar so my customers dont experience any downtime?
I was told I could manually edit the DNS zone instead, and do it that way, but I have no idea how to do that.

ANY suggestions, advice, help would be greatly appreciated!! :)

In WHM under DNS functions you can edit the zone file for the primary domain cdecker.com.
Once you have setup the additional accounts in WHM on the new server, the IPs for the nameservers at the registrar can be switched.
Couple of links that may be helpful:
http://forums.cpanel.net/showthread.php?s=&threadid=20480&perpage=15&pagenumber=1
http://dnsreport.com/
First one will give you some info on SOA records and TTLs
Second one will let you check your dns setup.

yes, you have to update IP at your domain control panel.

and you still have a small downtime. You can use Transfer feature in WHM for copying data from old reseller account to new server, then edit DNS zone in old server to point to new one. It will reduce your downtime.

Thanks for the help guys, Its greatly appreciated...

Sawbuck, what exactly would I need ot change if I wanted to edit the zone file manually? I've been in there and know exactly where you are talking about, however once I got in there I wasnt exactly sure what to change...

Thanks!

Generally other than changing/adjusting the ttl numbers, adding name server A records to the zone similar to:
ns1 (ttl value) A (record type) IP address should do it. Also ns2 in similar fashion.
Looked at your current record -http://dnsreport.com/tools/dnsreport.ch?domain=cdecker.com and there seem to be a couple of errors.
Reverse dns is something you should correct/add with your new server. Datacenter will add that for you.
HTH

Awesome, thanks! Yea, I noticed there were some errors on it as well, but I will be sure to fix them all up now that I have my own machine and am in direct contact with the datacenter rather than with just a reseller. If I'm correct, all I need to do is provide the datacenter with the nameservers I have chosen to use (ns1 and ns2.cdecker.com) and their correspodning IP's

Yes that should do it.

CDecker

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