I'm using red hat, I've purchased a domain name and currently it's parked at the registrar site. I don't know what I did is right or not. I read up on internet and set up the dns, when i say dig example i'm able to see my ip address and when i say dig ns1.mydomainom it returns me the correct ip address but i can't see this ns1.mydomaicom from out of my home network, I have one linux machine i wanna use this as my name server and use this to host my domain I'll really appreciate any help, since I'm a newbie please be patient.
thanx

First test your name server.
ssh to some computer outside your network then
dig @youripaddress yourdomainname.com
For your ip address be sure you use the dotted decimal ip address.
If the above works then your domain server is working.

Remember it takes about a day for your registrar dns change to take effect.

When it does take affect you should be able to do a host yourdomainname.com
from the same computer you did the dig test earlier. If not then you DNS configuration has not propagated yet to the root servers.

hey thanx so much for the quick reply, ,,,,,,I tried wat you mentioned this is what I got..can you please check if this is what I was supposed to do?
dig @66.124.171.145

; <<>> DiG 9.2.2 <<>> @66.124.171.145
;; global options: printcmd
;; Got answer:
;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 1757
;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 13, AUTHORITY: 0, ADDITIONAL: 13

;; QUESTION SECTION:
;. IN NS

;; ANSWER SECTION:
. 516994 IN NS G.ROOT-SERVERS.NET.
. 516994 IN NS H.ROOT-SERVERS.NET.
. 516994 IN NS I.ROOT-SERVERS.NET.
. 516994 IN NS J.ROOT-SERVERS.NET.
. 516994 IN NS K.ROOT-SERVERS.NET.
. 516994 IN NS L.ROOT-SERVERS.NET.
. 516994 IN NS M.ROOT-SERVERS.NET.
. 516994 IN NS A.ROOT-SERVERS.NET.
. 516994 IN NS B.ROOT-SERVERS.NET.
. 516994 IN NS C.ROOT-SERVERS.NET.
. 516994 IN NS D.ROOT-SERVERS.NET.
. 516994 IN NS E.ROOT-SERVERS.NET.
. 516994 IN NS F.ROOT-SERVERS.NET.

;; ADDITIONAL SECTION:
A.ROOT-SERVERS.NET. 603394 IN A 198.41.0.4
B.ROOT-SERVERS.NET. 603394 IN A 192.228.79.201
C.ROOT-SERVERS.NET. 603394 IN A 192.33.4.12
D.ROOT-SERVERS.NET. 603394 IN A 128.8.10.90
E.ROOT-SERVERS.NET. 603394 IN A 192.203.230.10
F.ROOT-SERVERS.NET. 603394 IN A 192.5.5.241
G.ROOT-SERVERS.NET. 603394 IN A 192.112.36.4
H.ROOT-SERVERS.NET. 603394 IN A 128.63.2.53
I.ROOT-SERVERS.NET. 603394 IN A 192.36.148.17
J.ROOT-SERVERS.NET. 603394 IN A 192.58.128.30
K.ROOT-SERVERS.NET. 603394 IN A 193.0.14.129
L.ROOT-SERVERS.NET. 603394 IN A 198.32.64.12
M.ROOT-SERVERS.NET. 603394 IN A 202.12.27.33

;; Query time: 2 msec
;; SERVER: 66.124.171.145#53(66.124.171.145)
;; WHEN: Sat Oct 23 22:57:08 2004
;; MSG SIZE rcvd: 436



dig @192.168.1.100

; <<>> DiG 9.2.2 <<>> @192.168.1.100
;; global options: printcmd
;; Got answer:
;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 10837
;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 13, AUTHORITY: 0, ADDITIONAL: 13

;; QUESTION SECTION:
;. IN NS

;; ANSWER SECTION:
. 516963 IN NS M.ROOT-SERVERS.NET.
. 516963 IN NS A.ROOT-SERVERS.NET.
. 516963 IN NS B.ROOT-SERVERS.NET.
. 516963 IN NS C.ROOT-SERVERS.NET.
. 516963 IN NS D.ROOT-SERVERS.NET.
. 516963 IN NS E.ROOT-SERVERS.NET.
. 516963 IN NS F.ROOT-SERVERS.NET.
. 516963 IN NS G.ROOT-SERVERS.NET.
. 516963 IN NS H.ROOT-SERVERS.NET.
. 516963 IN NS I.ROOT-SERVERS.NET.
. 516963 IN NS J.ROOT-SERVERS.NET.
. 516963 IN NS K.ROOT-SERVERS.NET.
. 516963 IN NS L.ROOT-SERVERS.NET.

;; ADDITIONAL SECTION:
A.ROOT-SERVERS.NET. 603363 IN A 198.41.0.4
B.ROOT-SERVERS.NET. 603363 IN A 192.228.79.201
C.ROOT-SERVERS.NET. 603363 IN A 192.33.4.12
D.ROOT-SERVERS.NET. 603363 IN A 128.8.10.90
E.ROOT-SERVERS.NET. 603363 IN A 192.203.230.10
F.ROOT-SERVERS.NET. 603363 IN A 192.5.5.241
G.ROOT-SERVERS.NET. 603363 IN A 192.112.36.4
H.ROOT-SERVERS.NET. 603363 IN A 128.63.2.53
I.ROOT-SERVERS.NET. 603363 IN A 192.36.148.17
J.ROOT-SERVERS.NET. 603363 IN A 192.58.128.30
K.ROOT-SERVERS.NET. 603363 IN A 193.0.14.129
L.ROOT-SERVERS.NET. 603363 IN A 198.32.64.12
M.ROOT-SERVERS.NET. 603363 IN A 202.12.27.33

;; Query time: 1 msec
;; SERVER: 192.168.1.100#53(192.168.1.100)
;; WHEN: Sat Oct 23 22:57:39 2004
;; MSG SIZE rcvd: 436


host www.igaane.com
www.igaane.com has address 66.124.171.145



so does this mean my dns server's up and running? I'm so lost...
will appreciate any help...

Sorry, you missed the last argument to the dig command so that output is of no use. Try this for example, so you see what a good response should look like. My domain is host and ip address is ip.
Type this command
dig @ip host
This tells the dig command to use only the nameserver located at ip to lookup the name host. This is one of the many tests you must do to verify your DNS server is responding to queries.
This test however does not verify that the root dns server has your DNS ip address listed as the authority for your personal domain. To verify that you can type (my example again)
host host
and ip should be returned. This response came from the root server set up by my registrar.
Compare my results with yours and that should help a lot. Be sure to run the host command on a computer outside your network, one that is known to have the resolve.conf configured correctly.

OOps, In my above example a better way to verify the registrar DNS configuration is to type
dig ns host