My webshop is hosted at a rather slow provider.

Now I have a virtual server at a 'cloud hosting company'. It was an empty CentOS installation. The website is already running.

Tonight I install a mailserver (qmail toaster).

My question is:
If I ask my 'cloud hosting company' to transfer my domain name to their dns servers, do I need bind to create the smtp.*.nl etc? Or is it ok, if only *.nl is pointing to my server?

it really depends what DNS services your provider provides. You presumably have a fixed dedicated IP, so you certainly *could* run BIND if you really want to, it's not a crazy thing to do at all (unlike those on home ADSL connections with dynamic IP's who try it), but I would suggest that on balance not to bother. IF your provider doesn't provide a full dashboard, I'd personally suggest pointing the NS records to zoneedit.com and managing your DNS with them (for free). If you can transfer the domain to the provider though, then that'll surely have more than just basic NS record hosting there, so I expect that's not required either.

Hi Chris,

Thanks! I asked my provider about their possibilities.

My provider does have an excellent (primary and secondairy) dns control panel. So, I do not need bind!