Does anyone know how to best setup wildcard domains on a server/DNS, such as abc.domain.com, def.domain.com, etc... I want to be able to allow any prefix for a domain, with the ability to then redirect these in a Virtualhost setting in Apache or otherwise. Thanks.

- John C.

Just include an A record like this in the zone file:

*.domain.com. A 127.0.0.1

Thanks for the info. For a nameserver, what is involved in using "aliases" such as ns.mydomain.com and ns2.mydomain.com to setup personally named nameservers?

- John C.

You should be able to just set up some A records for the "ns" and "ns2" hostnames on the domain's zone file. The records would point to the IP addresses of your name servers.

I have heard that NSI and registrars do not like/allow multiple nameservers to have the same IP. Any truth to this? Any drawbacks to having mutliple nameserver aliases point to the same 2 IP's? Thanks.

- John C.

I haven't used NSI since I had a choice, so I can't speak for them.

You can always assign a couple of extra IPs for the virtual name servers and configure those on your DNS server. Then those A records would point to those IPs, of course. Just make sure BIND (or whatever you're using) is set to bind to those addresses - by default it will.

You won't be able to use the same ip's to register new nameservers. That was my experience anyway.

Apart from NetSol, am I able to register nameservers with any other registrar (that you would recommend)? As Jaguar and I will tell you, it's been a pain in the butt trying to get NetSol to register my nameservers....

I have all my domains with http://www.directnic.com. I logged into my control panel, opened a ticket to register new nameservers, and it was done in 4 hours. Very easy and very "headache free"!

Any openSRS registrar has a field for creation of nameserver. Must have the domain in the system though (which probably isn't what you are looking for).

Well, that actually helps (since 000domains.com uses OpenSRS).... Danke for that info.

We've currently got 4 different nameservers on two different company domains. We also host numerous domains under both companies. In my experience, you must register your nameservers with the registrar that your root domain is registered with.

IE: If joesdomain.com is registered with NetSol, you need to register your ns1.joesdomain.com and ns2.joesdomain.com with NetSol. However if joesdomain.com is registered with a CORENic registrar, you'd need to register the nameservers with them.

If you don't properly register your nameservers, you will be unable to setup domains listing them. [Found this one out the hard way several months ago. :) ]

Good luck with it! DNS is complicated, but not impossible.

you can not use the same ip for seperate name server , but you can use the same ip of your site as one . for example , if your site is foo.com with ip 1.1.1.1 and you want name servers, then you can use ns.foo.com as one and have it use 1.1.1.1 but you can not then create a second with that same ip. you would have to use ns2.foo.com 1.1.1.2 or what have you.

Thanks for all the info. What's the easiest way to bind additional IP's to "named" on a Linux 5.x machine?

- John C.

1) make sure you are running the latest version of named (bind) http://www.isc.org/bind (or you will get cracked)

2) just bind the ips with ifconfig