Hi Max, On Sun, Oct 03, 2010 at 08:31:12AM -0700, Max B wrote: The above line needs a "." on the end otherwise it will expand to backup.mail.bitfolk.com.exoco.net. You seem to have it fixed on the actual nameserver though: $ dig +short -t mx exoco.net @212.13.195.120 0 smtp.exoco.net. 50 backup.mail.bitfolk.com. That's the only issue I can see in the zone file. The registrar currently has different nameservers set for this zone: $ jwhois exoco.net [...] Domain servers in listed order: NS51.DOMAINCONTROL.COM NS52.DOMAINCONTROL.COM Which means that queries are going to hit those nameservers, not your own one. This may be intentional if you're not ready to have live queries hit your nameserver yet. Just checking you were aware. By "config" I thought you meant the configuration of the name server, which you normally find in /etc/bind/named.conf, /etc/bind/named.conf.options etc. on Debian. Your name server appears to basically work in that it answers queries, so there can't be anything too badly wrong. You will probably need to poke around in order to allow zone transfer to the bitfolk nameservers when you're ready for that. They are just words. Call it binky-the-mailinator.exoco.net if you want. Depends where you write them. Show us a zone file and we'll tell you what it does. No. The server name in the SOA line is supposed to be a clue to humans as to which server has the canonical, master copy of the zone. In practice it can be an arbitrary string as long as it's syntactically valid. If I were you I'd put ns.exoco.net there, if ns.exoco.net is going to be the name of your nameserver. I think by "delay" you mean "priority", that would be the usual term for the number after the "MX". I don't know what you mean by giving one thing to your registrar and having another thing in your zone file. The only data that matters is what exists in the zone files of the nameservers listed at your registrar. Unless you tell your registrar to use your nameservers, queries are only going to hit the ones they have set and so it won't matter what you put in your bind. No one will direct queries to it. Cheers, Andy -- http://bitfolk.com/ -- No-nonsense VPS hosting

Hi All, well, my bind setup looks pretty stable after all the comments and suggestions from this list. Thanks! The zone file is appended for more evolution if anyone wants to discuss it some more. The commands % host -a exoco.net and % dig +short -t mx exoco.net @212.13.195.120 return the values that I think they should. I did not know about the helpful 'D' shorthand notation. I plan to RFC my reverse DNS zone file in a short while. I did not know that the reverse DNS would afftect my sendmail relay/origin, but had it since <http://linux.justinhartman.com/DNS_Installation_and_Setup_using_BIND9> discussed it. Cheers, Max ; ; BIND data file for example.com ; $TTL 3D @ SOA ns.exoco.net. admin.exoco.net. ( 2010100401 ; Serial - YYYYMMDDXX 7200 ; Refresh - 2hrs 600 ; Retry - 10mins 604800 ; Expire - 1wks 3600) ; minimum - 1hr ; ; Useful doc for above SOA values: ; http://www.ripe.net/ripe/docs/ripe-203.html ; NS ns.exoco.net. NS a.authns.bitfolk.com. NS b.authns.bitfolk.com. NS c.authns.bitfolk.com. MX 0 smtp.exoco.net. MX 50 backup.mail.bitfolk.com. A 212.13.195.120 ns A 212.13.195.120 www CNAME exoco.net. smtp A 212.13.195.120 ________________________________ From: Paul Booth &lt;pabooth(a)neonex.com&gt; To: users(a)lists.bitfolk.com Sent: Mon, October 4, 2010 12:23:03 AM Subject: Re: [bitfolk] critique my bind9 setup Hey, The only things I could say are as follows: On 03/10/2010 16:31, Max B wrote: Do you really need a TTL of a week? 3 days seems more sensible. Also, you might want to use the W, D, H and M notation in zone files rather than seconds, to make it much more readable. Did you mean "ns.exoco.net" here? If you're intending to use ns.exoco.net as an authoratitive name server for exoco.net, you'll need a glue record to hold it all together. A hidden primary configuration is something you may want to consider looking into. Basically having a primary server that just holds the zone files, but is never queried directly for records, it lets other servers which have already pulled the zone data from it do that. If you're intending to use this box as an outgoing smtp relay/origin, it's a very good idea to have reverse DNS set too. It won't break anything per-se, but it's bad practice as Andy has already said. Cheers, Paul. -- Paul Booth Technical Services Group, Neonex W: www.neonex.com M: +44 (0)7973 666678 T: +44 (0)1276 309911 F: +44 (0)1276 597127 Unit B1E, Fairoaks Airport Chobham, Surrey GU24 8HX Neonex - Cloud Computing Made Clear _______________________________________________ users mailing list users(a)lists.bitfolk.com https://lists.bitfolk.com/mailman/listinfo/users