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  1. #1
    Join Date
    Dec 2009
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    MA
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    80

    cpanel dns cluster? registrars dns services?

    I am deploying a second vps in order to add redundancy. dns clustering is what everyone recommends. I was going to do that with

    ns1 and ns2 on server 1 along with server1 customers using ns1 and ns2.

    then on the second server:

    ns3 and ns4 on server 2 along with server2 customers using ns3 and ns4.

    with one of them being the master dns server and another being the slave.


    when I started out i had some of my customers use their registrar dns server and modified those dns records myself for them. that seems to be a very reliable, if cumberson, way to do things. what are peoples opinion on that?

    thank you smart people
    energy efficient shared hosting solutions from florence, ma @ florenceit.biz

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Mar 2010
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    354
    what's the point of having ns1+ns2 on server 1? and ns3+ns4 on server 2?

    if server 1 goes down so is both of your ns1 and ns2.. same for server 2.

    i suggest you use freedns.afraid.org which offers 4 different servers for free or branded for a fee.

  3. #3
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    Dec 2009
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    MA
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    if server 1 went down then customers on server 1 are the only customers NEEDING ns1 and ns2, thus minimized loss as it wouldnt matter that the nameserver was down if all associated hosting plans were down.

    ive read many people here doing the exact same thing, the logic being with only 2 servers to work with if one goes down only it's websites would be affected.

    i have considered 3rd party dns. but i just invested in another vps so want to take advantage of redundancy plans i can do with just those at the moment, which is much better than just on one server as I had it.
    energy efficient shared hosting solutions from florence, ma @ florenceit.biz

  4. #4
    Join Date
    Mar 2010
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    354
    your logic is flawed. webhosting is just one service the domain is used for. why should all the other services, which presumably are hosted somewhere else, suffer?

    just because other clowns are doing it, doesn't mean you should too.

    //EDIT: if i look up your domain and see you have 4 geographically redundant name servers + 4-5 mx records (google apps for ex), I KNOW YOU MEAN BUSINESS. I KNOW I CAN REACH YOU NO MATTER WHAT.
    Last edited by cagoon; 05-15-2010 at 07:28 PM.

  5. #5
    Join Date
    Mar 2005
    Location
    Orlando, Florida
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    2,625
    Quote Originally Posted by florenceit View Post
    if server 1 went down then customers on server 1 are the only customers NEEDING ns1 and ns2, thus minimized loss as it wouldnt matter that the nameserver was down if all associated hosting plans were down.

    ive read many people here doing the exact same thing, the logic being with only 2 servers to work with if one goes down only it's websites would be affected.

    i have considered 3rd party dns. but i just invested in another vps so want to take advantage of redundancy plans i can do with just those at the moment, which is much better than just on one server as I had it.
    You're better off making server 1 NS1 and server 2 NS2.

    The logic you have is a bit flawed, although it's not a bad idea, it wouldn't work in reality.

    If you have 500 domains and each domain has four name servers, two on one server two on the other, that's a 50% chance of an outage if both DNS servers went down.

    If you have those same 500 domains with two DNS servers split across two servers, that's a 50% chance of an outage.

    There's no real benefit to having two DNS servers split amongst hardware if you're not going to do it right
    Matthew Rosenblatt, and I do lots of things.
    Used to be a full time server administrator, now I help build cruise ships and inspect homes.
    My company, Ferrell Solutions, specializes in home inspections and property management.
    RecallScan is a service for monitoring appliances and vehicles in your home for recalls.

  6. #6
    Join Date
    Dec 2009
    Location
    MA
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    80
    Hi
    this is not my logic folks, but it does offer me more than i have now. i started this thread asking what would you do. I have one answer from the freedns.afraid.org salesman . that is a consideration. or a service like it. some are free and it looks like one good option to use one of my servers as primary and a service for backup. essentially that offers me little more than the original plan.

    the idea i posted that i got from this forum does increase my redundancy a bit. with everything on one server if it goes down everything is down. if i do what i described and a server goes down, only half my clients go down if i have spread them out as I intend. thats 50% better than all, but not 100% fault tolerant, thus im asking here.

    really just looking for backup dns options, not backup everything, which i was going to look into later. but the idea i read about here seems like a good way to provide 50% better chance of uptime (flip a coin) in ADDITION to the primary goal for now, of providing backup dns.

    which makes me think of another question, with the backup dns services in conjunction with my own master dns server: can you if primary dns server goes down and econdary takes over, is it possible to update zones in the secondary servers with new IP info ?

    thanks!!
    energy efficient shared hosting solutions from florence, ma @ florenceit.biz

  7. #7
    Hi Florence,

    Getting an external 4 node Cpanel DNS cluster is really the way to go for your 4 nameservers, especially if all DNS servers are geographically dispersed. It's simple to setup, costs very little, and work beautifully.

    You also need to plan for the future, and hence keeping your DNS cluster external to your hosting servers is the best setup. You won't have lots of DNS zones being added to your hosting servers(which can cause much confusion) and you can migrate customers between hosting servers with zero downtime.

    Let us know if you have any further questions.

    Regards,
    Suhail.
    OSHS Ltd
    OSHS Services - DNS Clusters | R1Soft Licenses | R1Soft CDP Storage | UK Server Colo | UK Rack Space

  8. #8
    Join Date
    Jan 2005
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    In your server
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    I understand what you are trying to achieve, but seem to be going about it a really weird way. for instance, our setup uses the cPanel DNS only system for all our nameservers. we have NS1 on a machine that is inside our main network, ns2 on another UK server and ns3 on a US server, all of our shared hosting servers are then linked to these 3 servers for DNS, no matter where they are, it also means that the hosting servers never have to answer a DNS request as all are handled by the DNS servers. i think its a really bad idea to use your hosting servers to also serve DNS requests
    If you need help about anything to do with WHT, check out the Helpdesk

  9. #9
    Join Date
    Dec 2009
    Location
    MA
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    thanks every one of you, very much. I have just a few clients so cannot justify getting additional vps's or servers for dns only. Up until this point i was running everything on one managed server. performance is fine. adding a second is going to allow me to backup to each other, and spread out some risk by splitting the clients and dns.. Once i get to a point where these are outgrown my very next step will be external dns servers. for now im clustering between the two, will setup automated backups between the two. with low loads there is no performance problems. fortunately i have a very good host so downtime will hopefully never be an issue with either server.

    thanks for all the info on dns servers i will definitely use it in the future.
    energy efficient shared hosting solutions from florence, ma @ florenceit.biz

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