Here is what I'm trying to accomplish.

I am trying to host my own website with a domain name registered with namecheap.com.

I have a Raspberry Pi with Debian installed on it and bind9 for DNS. I have probably installed deleted and installed it and configured it 5 times now. I feel like I am missing something or am not doing something right.

I am also behind a SOPHOS UTM firewall and have configured the firewall correctly to talk to the Internet. After installing and configuring bind, I was able to dig and get the proper results. I was also able to ping ns1.mydomain.net and get a reply from my public IP which I configured in my zone files.

Here is the thing. If I ping from outside of my network, I get nothing. If I try an NSLOOKUP outside my domain, I get a server failed response. I have registered the ns1 with namecheap.

My public IP is from comcast so it's a dynamic IP, which I intend to update frequently as it changes.

Am I missing something??

Check to ensure that on the outside your domain is known.
I'm pretty sure comcast block all the known ports 1024 and below to resident addresses.

It just times out when I do an NSLOOKUP on it. Then if I try and ping anything that I have in my A records (which is pointed to external IP) it says it can't find the host. Only thing I can't figure out is is why.

I've done the research. https://customer.xfinity.com/help-an...blocked-ports/ lists all the ports that are blocked by default, and none in the list should affect what I'm trying to do.

Idk

Do you have a firewall running on your system?

Yes, as I mentioned, I am running SOPHOS UTM as my firewall.
I believe everything is properly configured in my firewall.

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For you to run a nameserver for *.yourdomain.com., the next level up needs to have an NS record that points to your nameserver. What do you get from:

I believe that's all set up correctly.

Results of dig -t NS mydomain.net:

; <<>> DiG 9.8.4-rpz2+rl005.12-P1 <<>> -t ns mydomain.net
;; global options: +cmd
;; Got answer:
;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 1052
;; flags: qr aa rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 1, AUTHORITY: 0, ADDITIONAL: 1

;; QUESTION SECTION:
;mydomain.net. IN NS

;; ANSWER SECTION:
mydomain.net. 300 IN NS mydomain.net.

;; ADDITIONAL SECTION:
mydomain.net. 300 IN A 73.102.xxx.xxx

;; Query time: 11 msec
;; SERVER: 127.0.0.1#53(127.0.0.1)
;; WHEN: Thu Sep 22 14:48:18 2016
;; MSG SIZE rcvd: 66

Note: This is from inside the PI. Can't dig anything outside. Connection times out.

Go to your DNS register and ensure that your NS records are setup to point to your server.

Everything is set right.

Everything is working correctly now. I'm able to nslookup and get proper results inside and out of the Pi and home network. I'm also able to dig outside and get proper results.

I think it was a TTL or Latency issue.

Glad it is resolved for you. Kindly mark the thread as resolved.