I have this friend :D who is setting a RaQ3i for the first time. After the initial setup, he cannot see any websites.

Question: What is the proper procedure for setting up websites?

Here is what I did:

1. registered a domain name: www.domainname.com
2. Used a vendor supplied IP address
3. Created a virtual site with IP address from step 2
4. Now what? Do I need to set up a DNS server? What if we have a DNS server already? What if we want to use this RaQ3i as our DNS server, host websites, and shutdown the other DNS server?
5. I am using the DNS & Bind by O'Reilly and the Linux Administration: A Beginner's Guide by Steve Shah, but I am not able to make things work or connect.

It turns out that the "gentleman" that I replaced here left out some very important information.:angry: It turns out that we use www.registry.com to register our domain names and it is there that we need to supply the initial IP address information, etc.

I have changed that information and I will need to wait for up to 24 hours to see if this makes a difference or not.

If it's a new domain registration, you won't see anything for up to 3 days while the new DNS information propogates.

Do you WANT to run your own DNS? I assume so since you're reading BIND.

If so:

1) register the domain name, done
2) acquire the primary IP for your RaQ from your provider, done

Is this the ONLY site you are going to host on your RaQ? You do NOT need a separate IP for every domain you host. In fact, in today's world that's highly discouraged.

If you only have one RaQ, and want to run primary and secondary DNS, then you need 2 IP's, one for each nameserver.

Let's say IP1 is ns1.yourdomain.com, and IP2 is ns2.yourdomain.com

Set up your DNS per the RaQ manual (you did read that, right!?)

3) Once DNS is working, set up your virtual site on your RaQ

4) Add the following entries to your DNS config:

IP1 > A record ns1.yourdomain.com
IP2 > A record ns2.yourdomain.com
IP1 > A record yourdomain.com
IP1 > A record www.yourdomain.com
IP1 > A record mail.yourdomain.com
MX record domain.com is sent to highpriority mail server mail.yourdomain.com (this deviates slightly from the 'official' way)

Be SURE your provider sets up PTR's for IP1 and IP2. You will not need to set your own PTR's because 99.9% likely your provider has not given you authority to do so anyway.

Be SURE to save changes all the way back out, you will have to hit save changes at least 3 times when you're done. All the way back out to and including the Control Panel page itself.

5) In site settings for your new site, set web server as
yourdomain.com, www.yourdomain.com

and set the mail as
yourdomain.com, mail.yourdomain.com

6) Presto! Done. You won't be able to see the results of your work until the name propogates, unless you put an entry for yourdomain.com at your IP in your local (Windows) hosts file.

Hope this helps

Brandon

PS - If someone is already providing all DNS services for you, you can disregard steps 2,3, & 4

It turns out that the "gentleman" that I replaced here left out some very important information. It turns out that we use www.registry.com to register our domain names and it is there that we need to supply the initial IP address information, etc.
This only matters if they are providing your DNS for you. Otherwise they only need to know your correct nameservers for your domain.

Brandon