Web Hosting Talk : Web Hosting Main Forums : Reseller Hosting : The point of having personalised DNS?

Even if I have my own name servers, is there any other way that my clients can find out that I'm a reseller?

[kunal]

Dun think so.

[Annette]

Not in any particular way just based on nameservers. For instance, if you resell for an Alabanza-based host and have your own nameservers, traceroutes and lookups on the IPs assigned to your nameservers will point back to Alabanza, not to your host. People might ask a few questions if they see that your design and pricing is terribly similar to another host's, but of course they'd have to go through a lot of hosts' pages and make notes of what they've seen.

[MattF]

Yep. There is.... Plenty...

But 99.99% won't be able to tell. Some will do whois record (looking for tech contact, easily change), telnet to server to see server name and look at nameserver records....

The very careful people will do several checks and there is no way of hiding the facts from these people....

[JTY]

I agree with SysAdmin.

And I am one of those people that telnets to the mail server.

John

[CFoxHost]

The telnet trick does not always work. Alabanza's servers, by default, do not allow telnet. Only SSH which needs to be setup in advance. Additionally, a host can remove the servername from the prompt anyway. There is also the ftp login, but that can be edited to remove the server name as well. If you use the host SMTP, the servername will still show in the headers though.

There is still always some way that the very careful will find out though.

[Chicken]

I can see what Annette meant, but as someone who prods quite a bit (not in a bad way, I mean researches hosts), I would think she would have said yes. Maybe just nameservers alone wouldn't get you the info, but traceroutes, IP lookups, etc., surely could lead you toward the host.

Would it be accurate? Well, yes and no. It isn't always easy to tell from taceroutes, IP lookups, etc., and the person might be leasing/colo'ing a dedicated server. You can look up my nameservers and that alone won't tell you much. If you look up the IP address associated with those nameservers however, you will see that they are registered to tera-byte, which is where my server is located. Annette described a similar case with Alabanza servers.

While we could take "just the nameservers" as the question, I think you were asking if it would be possible to tell if you are reselling. The answer to that question, is very likely if you know how to do some easy research, and nope if your potential customer doesn't know how to do research. For every one person who knows to check, there are 50 more that don't. Maybe more, maybe less, I really don't know.

[Annette]

The original question revolved more around nameservers than anything else. Do you really think that 99% of the people out there, who do a cursory lookup on nameservers and the IPs associated with them are going to dig any deeper? No. Most people don't have the foggiest idea about how to begin tracking down that information or the technical know-how to do it even if they do have an idea about how such information would be gathered.

Looking at the WHOIS means squat - we keep some domain records in our name at the request of clients. Technical contact? So what? So it didn't get changed - big deal, and easily explained particularly if the registrar is NetSol.

I suppose this is my fault for (once again) not offering up the absolute, most vanilla explanation that would be clear to anyone on first reading.

To the original question: YES. People can and sometimes do track down the host for whom someone is reselling. YES. It is possible. Do most people do it? Can they? NO.

[Learner]

Originally posted by CFoxHost
There is also the ftp login, but that can be edited to remove the server name as well.

CFox... that was an enlightening reply you posted here. Thanks. Would you please throw a little more light how the FTP login can be edited to remove the server name? It would really help.

Learner

[Annette]

You can do the same thing for FTP as telnet/SSH. There is what amounts to a header file displayed when someone logs in. Most people refer to it as simply "message of the day" (and in fact, for many programs, the motd file is what contains the message seen when logging on via telnet/SSH), since that phrase has been used for many years - way back in time when command line was all there was.

For telnet/SSH, the motd is usually in /etc. For FTP, the file that displays the message varies depending on what FTP daemon is running.

[akashik]

The above responses are correct about one thing... Most people won't know or care beyond a whois check (if they even go that far). If they DO know how to dig up that sort of information that they're likely to also know that being a reseller doesn't mean poor service (necessarily).

No matter what a potential host is tech wise, I think if you offer the sort of service they want (tech support, friendly prompt responses), and have done your own research enough to provide a fast, quality server then that will do more most people.

Essentially from going through this forum there's a finite amount of places you should consider having hosting space. and they can either rent under a reseller, become a reller themselves, or get their own box, on those finite providers. Anywhere else and they'll begin to suffer poor speed and downtime.

Greg Moore
http://www.akashik.net

[Learner]

Annette, I am sure most of us find your replies and explanations often "absolute and plain vanilla" to comprehend!

Thanks for your prompt and extremely clearcut reply to my question above.

I would now like to call everybody's attention to something interesting I saw a few minutes ago at http://BLUEHILL.com/servers/prices.htm

On this page, somewhere in the middle, they have two sections with a whole lot of prices. (I don't know whether this information will be actually helpful to hosting companies.)

Section 1 = Virtual Name Server Aliases

What is a Virtual Name Server ALIAS exactly?

and

Section 2 = Virtual Name Servers (a whole lot of them designated with what appears to be different packages with differing prices.

What could the numbers in the first left-most column possibly indicate? Do they indicate the limited number of I.P. addresses these name servers resolve... or?

Learner

[Edited by Learner on 09-10-2000 at 09:02 PM]

[kunal]

Well, Vitual Name Server Alias I guess is a virtual name server for your domain name. So you can have ns1.yourdomain.com and ns2.yourdomain.com


A word of advice, I would associate with this company simply because of one word, "Unlimited"

[CFoxHost]

Learner, besides the MOTD files that Annette mentioned, there is also the command line prompt that states the server name. This is determined (usually) by /etc/bashrc. You can remove the "@\h " (ignore the qoutes, and note the trailing space).

Keep in mind, as has already been said, if someone has the knowledge, they will find out. If they don't know how to find out, they will ask someone who does know how.

Honesty is always the best policy

[Learner]

Thanks CFox, for adding to Annette's post above.

Yes... just like you, I also do sincerely believe that Honesty IS the Best Policy.

In fact, Honesty IS the Bestest Policy.

However, I wouldn't term withholding information regarding the source of your services (in this case) as being "dishonest". Because in business, the conventional wisdom is... one just has to withhold the information of one's supplier of services or goods to prevent his client's from approaching his supplier directly.

Learner

[Edited by Learner on 09-11-2000 at 07:14 AM]