I am helping to teach a website building summer camp, and I need I domain. I have a web server and can squeeze a couple of v-hosts out of it, and I even have BIND installed and working. The only problem is that I don't want to pay $9.95 for a registrat to tell ICANN or whatever about my domain. Basically I want to be my own registrar. All the sites I found say that I can't do that, but I don't really believe it. If those of you on this forum say it can't be done, I guess I'll have to live with it, but please give me another solution. By the way, long hours of computing and hard effort aren't a problem, if that's what it takes.

Thanks,
-Peter

You don't even need a web server running to have a website (well, not a website so much as an internal group of pages). For instance, if I create an HTML file on my Windows PC and double-click it, FF opens it as a webpage. So why not just have people do that?

Chris

why would you think you had the right to pull domain names out of the air? what would stop you deciding to have ... ohh... microsoft.com... yeah that's a nice sounding domain name, got a certain ring to it.I think i'll publish that out to the ROOT-SERVERS so everyone can come see my site. you can not be your own registrar.

you really can't afford $10?????

Acid, come on, man. He's not asking whether or not he has the right to do that. You can answer his question without being cruel or trying to make him feel stupid, bro.

Well, acid. I'm 15 so I don't exactly have a credit card. Good job. Anyway, WorldBuilder. I might resort to that if I have to, but since I'm teaching younger kids I'd kind of like to get them atleast a sub domain each on my server so they don't have to got to big IP address. Although acid makes a valid point that domain snatching would be prevalent, I don't see how the registrar's can control all this: where do they get domains from? Anyway, if all else fails, I might just have them open the files from their computers or just register a few subdomains.

Thanks,
-Peter

i'm not being cruel, just suggesting that if you look at what is actually being asked for, it's a very very dangerous thing if it were possible.

Why not set up your DNS server for internal(intranet) use only? Them you could make worldgnat.com as your domain. Then give them all subdomains like sam.worldgnat.com, etc... Then have your DNS server forward requests to your ISP's DNS server for internet requests? I did this for about 5 years til I got broadband. Then I registered a domain name.

I'm curious as to HOW to do this. I don't know. Could you elaborate for both myself worldgnat? Thanks!

Chris

Understood, but being 15 he seemingly didn't know, so the question was pretty innocent. Regardless, no worries, mate.

Yeah, I really like the intranet option. That would give them a good preview, and they I could say, "Hey, buy a domain kids, It's cool!". That's great. Acid, your right. I was wondering what would happen if someone did that. I assume that ICANN would break down your door and send you to Git-mo. Anyway. It would be really nice if you could explain how to setup said intranet domain.

Thanks,
-Peter

if it's purely on an intranet, then there's nothing really to it... you'd just want to be able to resolve "mydomain.com" or whatever to be your webserver. that would be an entry in your DNS server, or possibly just an entry on each /etc/resolv.conf in your network. the web server will then recieve a request for the given url and assugn it to a certain virtual host, and there's your page in your domain.

I googled for a couple how to set up bind. These should get you going.

http://www.stamey.nu/DNS/DNSSettingUpBind.asp
http://www.ludd.luth.se/~kavli/BIND-FAQ.html

I've got bind running, but I'll be using school machines, so I can't edit the resolv.conf on any of them. Any other solution?

Thanks,
-Peter

Being 15, I have to assume that this is some extracurricular thing you signed up for. Since they're school machines that you shouldn't edit, have the school system's admin do it. I'm sure s/he would.

I'll try it. Thanks.

-Peter