How do you make your own DNS?

February 1, 2016 5.4k views
DNS FAQ Ubuntu
winter4w
By:
winter4w

Hello,

So I am thinking of starting a small web host and would like to use a Digital Ocean VPS to run it. The thing I am getting stuck on is how will I setup my DNS servers so if a customer has his own domain he can use it? Do I just make ns1.(mydomain).com and ns2.(mydomain).com, and just point those to my VPS's IP address??

Thanks

F.Y.I the control panel I will be using is vestaCP.

1 comment
  • bfiount April 30, 2016

    Hello, I'm also trying to setup my own dns with cpanel but can't get it running.
    I did the following:

    1. I added hostnames with the 3 ips same as D.O.
      ns2 173.245.59.41

      ns1 173.245.58.51

      ns3 198.41.222.173

    2. I put the new nameserver to the same domain.

    3. I added the nameserver to cpanel.

    And still not working...
    this is the domain with own nameserver: gsmhosting.cloud

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1 Answer
jschwenn MOD February 1, 2016

There are a few steps in that process.

  1. You'd need to register the private name servers with your domain registrar. Every registrar handles this differently. This is also referred to as the GLUE records.
  2. You would then point your domain to those name servers
  3. You would need to add the domain to your DNS server (VestaCP) and make sure there are A records for the ns1 and ns2 subdomains.

Once all three steps are complete, you could have other sites hosted on your VestaCP system and simply have the domains pointed to your name servers and everything should magically work.

Happy coding,

Jon Schwenn
Platform Support Specialist
DigitalOcean

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  • winter4w February 1, 2016

    I use Name Cheap as my domain registrar. So would I use your guys DNS service or will I keep it with Name Cheap and setup the DNS with Name Cheap?

    Also what IP's will I forward the name servers too?

    • jschwenn MOD February 1, 2016

      If you want VestaCP to control the DNS zones, then the DigitalOcean DNS feature would not be used at all. What I was describing was using the Droplet as the DNS server. You can use the Droplet's IP address for ns1 and ns2. It's not redundant, but allows the control panel to control the DNS zones. If Namecheap complains that the IP addresses are the same, technically you can add a secondary IP with DigitalOcean's Floating IP feature.

      This is a link to Namecheap's documentation. It looks like they call the setting "register personal nameservers".

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