First domain registered, need help with setting up DNS server
 

Hi.

I have just registered my first domain at a domain registar in the hope to start up some web sites for myself and friends for various small things.

The easiest option I could find was to use DTC at http://www.gplhost.com/software-dtc.html to manage everything like DNS, WWW, FTP and mail etc on the Xen VPS I currently rent.

My problem is related to DNS, I want to be able to manage subdomains of the domain I registered and be able to host other domains too, I know I need to run my own DNS server but I don't know too much about this.
I also need a backup DNS server, I found freedns.afraid.org that seems to provide this service.

However, I am confused how to set this up, it seems I need to use a glue record in my domain registrars settings with the domain I have just registered and point this to my VPS IP address to be an authorative server, but I only have this single IP and for the glue record settings it needs 2 IP addresses in the web form. Can I use IP of the afraid.org servers here or do I need another DNS server myself?
When completed the web form I apparently need to send a mail to their support with zone details afterwards (what?!).

Is there a way I test that my DNS server VPS is set up correctly with dig or nslookup before bothering their support when I have a mis-configured server? I try to use dig on the VPS but I keep getting a SERVFAIL status when I try to check my domain like dig @127.0.0.1 mx.example.com or example.com.
I'm a bit stuck now and don't know how to go about this further, can anyone tell me what I'm missing or what I'm doing wrong?

Many thanks.

We really need additional information, are you looking to setup forward and reverse dns or just forward? Are you using bind or some other dns package? What distribution are you using, etc.

dns server for linux is 'bind' or 'bind9', if as your profile state you are using kubuntu i think it's 'bind9'
a good starting place would be to install bind9 and 'webmin' (www.webmin.org) on your computer you want to use as a DNS server to provide a gui
but without more information such as whether you are pointing this at a local machine on your network, or a machine on the internet, and wether or not you have a static IP to point the domain at

Why do you think you need to run your own DNS server?

Since, as you are discovering, you generally need to run 2 servers, it's a costly exercise. Try using one of the free services out there like zoneedit.com (there are others as well) to do this. Nothing to stop you having subdomains, etc.

Wow thanks for all the replies!

I managed to fix it up.
I don't know why I kept getting SERVFAIL response but I restarted bind and I could test with dig after that and it worked fine. Sorry for a wasted thread.
Installing the dtc-toaster package in Ubuntu got all the packages for DTC installed and after a bit of tweaking it all works now and I can manage domains with it.

All I had to do was make a glue record and contact my registrar with name server hostnames of my choice and the IP addresses they point to. I filled in the forms with the IP address of my VPS and the IP of DNS backup service at freedns.afraid.org.
DTC provides config for backup DNS server, I added the IP for the backup server and configured it at the web page at afraid.org and everything looks good now, AXFR transfers seem to be working.

Lot of things still need to figure out but I will get there.

Many thanks again.