Hey guys, I'm pretty new to linux and I'm using red hat 9 to set up a single web server. I thought i had it all figured out until i went to set up the dns info. I have a computer on a static ip address that is to be the web server. But apparently i need a domain name server set up also. My question is: what is the best way to do this. Should there be a separate computer for the dns server or can I just use one computer for the dns server and web server. All i want is to make a public web site accessible thru a domain name that I already have. I am hung up because i have an ip address for the web server, but my domain hosting provider has set up two name servers which use another two of my static ip address Should i change the web server to use the name server ip address? I'm probably just repeating my problem and I just need to be straightened up a little. Any help would be great!

Erase all the IP address and put in the IP address for your web server. Then you should be up and running. Usually it takes a day to refresh the server. You may need to find a script to change the the information if your ISP changes their IP address.

A DNS server should be used if you are making an internet, intranet node in your network, or you freak out of editing a few hundred of host files. DNS servers are great if your users have their own web site and they want to give out IP address to other users on the same network.

Putting an DNS server on internet is asking for trouble. You have to have permission to have an DNS server on the internet.

A web server, DNS server, FTP server, mail server, etc are services. You can run multiple services on one machine. Keep an eye on CPU, disk, and bandwidth usage.

What do you get when you do a "nslookup <yourdomain.com>"?

If you get an address back, then someone already has your DNS taken care of. If you don't get an address back, then either your domain record is not hosted on anyones DNS or your domain is invalid.

You can check your own domain record information by visiting the following link (if it is a .com, .net, or .edu) and searching for it;
http://www.internic.net/whois.html

When you do a "domain" search for your domain, it will tell you the responsible DNS servers for this domain. If those DNS servers are your static IP's then your need to host your own DNS server.

You don't need permission to set up your own DNS server, unless you are part of an organization that regulates your network (corporation, ISP, etc...). There are many considerations to take into effect if you need to put up a DNS server, you may want RTFH (Read The Friendly How-to's) for help on this.

Thanks for the help. It appears that my dns servers are my two static ip addresses. I also found out that my one linux box will act as the dns, web, and mail server. This one box will also have the ip addresses of both of the dns servers and my web server. My question now is how do I manage different host names on one computer? my nameservers are ns1.domain.us and ns2.domain.us and I think my webserver will have yet another name such as whatever.domain.us. How will the one computer act as all of those and do I need a separate ethernet card for each ip address? Once again, thanks for the help!!

No, you can use virtual interfaces to do all three on the same ethernet card.

I will get back to you later with more details, but for now check out the use of the ifconfig command. (i.e. man ifconfig)