Hey LQ,

For some reason DNS is one of those things that I can't seem to quite grasp my head around. I have linux based VPS server and I'd like to being configuring it to act as a mail server and webserver. I understand in order to do this I might bind a domain name (which I have) to the IP address of the machine.

My questions are as follows:

- Do I want to use a DNS service from the registrar?
- Do I want to set up my own DNS service on the system itself?

I get further confused when I think about how to:

- Host multiple domain names on the same machine, maybe this is an apache thing as well as a DNS thing?

- Host subdomains. Does this require it's own entry in the DNS service, or is this an apache thing as well?

- Email, is this something that must be set up at the DNS service as well?

Thanks for reading. Looking forward to responses that push me in the right direction.

So for the first two...

- Probably, but you can use a third party if you wish to. The registrar only needs to provide NS records that tell a client where to go to resolve all other other records. Generally these are all held in the same place, but it's no compulsory at all (from a technical perspective at least)
- NO! Thar be dragons!

And the rest...

- Both, yes. DNS gets names to a box, but Apache then needs to act upon the specific names. This is called a VirtualHost on Apache, and is extremely well, and prolifically, documented online.

- domains / subdomains... all the same thing here really.

- yes, this should be an MX (Mail eXchange) record on the DNS server, as opposed to A (Address I presume!) records above.