If I wanted to have

ns1.domain-name1.com
ns2.domain-name1.com
used for some sites (e.g. my own)

and

ns1.domain-name2.com
ns2.domain-name2.com
used for other sites (e.g. a few sites hosted for others, which I would want a more generic name for the nameservers)

on a single box, like a RackShack or Cobalthost $100 server, would this be possible?

Would it just require a minimum of 5 IP addresses? Or could I somehow alias the nameservers, so ns1.domain-name2.com would be entered by someone I would be hosting a site for but this would actually point to ns1.domain-name1.com ?

Sure, that's possible. You do need an IP for each nameserver though.

I'm just in the 'dreaming' stages, but might get an inexpensive server to learn on in the next few months.

It sounds like I would use the control panel (plesk or ensim) to do one set of dns servers, and would do the other manually for my own domains.

Does anyone know of a good introductory tutorial on setting up DNS on a RH server?

I set up 2 sets of name server on a plesk box (though I admit I was sure I did it wrong), but it worked, heh. Not sure what you'd like to know but once you choose the platform (control system), maybe someone can help ya'.

Sure this is possible. If you aren't running anything besides DNS on the machine, I would just go without a control panel. Something like that would be easy enough to just set up manually. There are all kinds of tutorials on the web for how to set that up in the BIND DNS server. And yes, you would need a seperate IP address for each name server.

Thanks Chicken. Thanks bombino.

I'll probably want a control panel on the box.

I'm thinking of putting 50 of my own domains on the first set of nameservers, which don't really need a control panel after the initial setup.

And then I'm thinking of 20-25 full sites (.5 up to 5 GB/month each) for friends, on the second set (more generic domain) name servers, and those I would like to provide a control panel for.

I have some time so I'll do some reading. I'm glad that it can work just using Plesk though, as that might be a nice easy option (though I was probably looking at Ensim just because it costs less and seems to load faster.)