Hi Graeme, I wouldn't worry about it - even the best of us forget these kind of things from time to time! I don't know what difference there is between Debian and Ubuntu, but this is how you do it in Ubuntu as far as I know: /etc/bind/named.conf.local is for your zone information, so something like this: zone "simmo.gs" { type master; zone "db.simmo.gs"; }; /etc/bind/db.simmo.gs is the file containing your NS, A, etc. records: simmo.gs. IN SOA ns.simmo.gs you.simmo.gs. ( 20100111 ; Serial ; Defaults below as far as I'm aware! 180m ; Refresh after 3 hours 10m ; retry after 10 mins 1w ; expire after 1h ; negative caching TTL ) ; Nameservers IN NS ns.simmo.gs. ; Hosts ns IN A x.x.x.x ; replace that with NS IP address www IN A x.x.x.x ; replace with your webserver IP address That's probably the most basic config you can get away. It might or might not work - hopefully if I've missed something out, someone will correct me! James 2010/1/11 Graeme Simpson <graeme(a)butterware.co.uk>uk>:

Hi Graeme, On Mon, Jan 11, 2010 at 09:00:40PM +0000, Graeme Simpson wrote: Okay, well first it depends what you want to achieve. I'm assuming that you intend to install a DNS server, serve these two zones, and have BitFolk provide secondary name servers. First you would want to pick which nameserver software you're going to use. If you don't already have an opinion then BIND is a reasonable choice as it's probably the most common and easiest to find help and examples for. It's not necessarily the best, but it will work. After you've installed that, you will want to add zone files for each of those zones, and add them to BIND's configuration. On Debian/Ubuntu you would probably put a file in /etc/bind for each, so maybe /etc/bind/db.simmo.gs and /etc/bind/db.goodwithwords.eu. Then in named.conf.local you would have a config stanza for each, a bit like: zone "simmo.gs" { type master; file "/etc/bind/db.simmo.gs"; }; Similar for goodwithwords.eu. Each of these zone files might be something like: $TTL 86400 @ SOA ns.simmo.gs. hostmaster.simmo.gs. ( 2010011101 ; Serial - YYYYMMDDXX 14400 ; Refresh (4hrs) 900 ; Retry (15 mins) 1209600 ; Expire (2 weeks) 3600) ; Minimum (1 hour) ; Useful doc for above SOA values: ; http://www.ripe.net/ripe/docs/ripe-203.html NS ns.simmo.gs. NS a.authns.bitfolk.com. NS b.authns.bitfolk.com. NS c.authns.bitfolk.com. MX 5 mail.simmo.gs. A 212.13.195.X ns A 212.13.195.X www CNAME simmo.gs. The "hostmaster.simmo.gs" part is an email address (replace first . with @), so make it something that does or will work for contact purposes. The NS list assumes that you wish to have BitFolk provide secondary DNS for you. If you don't then put whatever nameservers in that you will be using. Most registrars will want to see at least 2. Get these zone files loaded, make sure the logs show that nothing is wrong, and make sure you can query your name server for the records, e.g.: $ dig +noall +answer -t soa taras.net @212.13.194.70 taras.net. 86400 IN SOA a.authns.bitfolk.com. hostmaster.bitfolk.com. 2009111001 14400 7200 1209600 43200 (substituting your domains for taras.net and your IP for 212.13.194.70) Once that works, if you're wanting BitFolk to provide some more servers then it's time to drop a line to support(a)bitfolk.com asking for that. At this point you are ready to tell your registrar(s) what nameservers to use for each domain. Exactly how that is done varies from registrar to registrar. After you've done that, the servers you've listed with your registrars and in your zones should start to receive queries. "dig" command line tool and squishy dns check: http://www.squish.net/dnscheck/ are very useful debugging tools - use those and post back here if you have problems you can't solve. Cheers, Andy -- http://bitfolk.com/ -- No-nonsense VPS hosting