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  1. #1
    Join Date
    Jul 2002
    Posts
    73

    Allowing client domain DNS to point to our servers

    We have servers that clients connect directly to:

    s1.domain.com
    s2.domain.com

    etc.

    We think it is a good idea that customers use their own DNS to point to these servers so they can cosmetically brand to their own name and, in the event we need to move a client to another of our internal servers, they can simple update their own DNS once.

    Are there any negative aspects to promoting this? Seems like a good idea...

    Thanks

  2. #2
    Join Date
    May 2004
    Location
    India
    Posts
    91
    I think a long DNS zone file can make the connection slow. Never tried really. I also want to know about that.
    Helpdesk : Sir, you need to add 10GB space to your HD , Customer : Could you please tell where I can download that?

  3. #3
    Join Date
    Jun 2003
    Posts
    673
    One downside is that if you need to move one of your servers to a different IP, you will need to coordinate this with all of the customers that are pointing DNS records to the server. You could tell the clients to use CNAME records instead of A records (although this can cause other well-documented problems).

  4. #4
    I assume you mean that your IP address is 123.455.78.9, and I can point ns1.mydomain.com to it, and my buddy can point ns1.hisdomain.com to it. It's still your server, though.

    Unless there's a need for them to "cosmetically brand" their nameservers, there's not really a point. However, there's no problem with it either. Having a long zone file won't cause any problems, because your zone file won't be all that long, really. As was pointed out, if your servers change IP address for some reason, it'd break all your clients' sites until they update it, and you'd need to notify them.

    The only real downside I can think of is that you should provide an A record for each nameserver they have set up. While it's not a requirement, not doing so is kind of a sloppy configuration, slows down queries, and can cause problems with some resolvers. That means every time somebody sets up a nameserver with their registrar, you need to reflect that in the configuration so the zone has glue.

    The upsides and downsides to this are minimal, really. It's a tradeoff between having branded nameservers and having to do more configuration. It really doesn't matter, so it's up to you. A lot of your clients might not go for it anyway, considering it just doesn't matter.

    I don't think I've ever checked out a company's nameservers to help me determine if I wanted to do business with them

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