Manage your DNS
This is the biggest secret of staying on line!
Usually, what happens is this. You register a domain name. You find a web hosting company for your web site. When you sign up at the web host, they tell you to change your name server records at your register to point to your new web host company DNS servers.
Then, your web host company creates a zone with your domain name and sets up your DNS records. The problem is that if your host goes down or you just want to change to a new provider, you automatically subject yourself to the three-day waiting period because you have to change name server records at your registrar.
Don't wait around. You have no idea how long your host will be down. It's their problem and their loss. If you manage your own DNS, you are changing records at your DNS host as opposed to your registrar records.
This allows you to change to a new hosting company and in a couple of minutes, the whole world knows. The key here is to NOT have to change your registrar records and have total control of your DNS records.
What are the benefits? There are many benefits of managing your own DNS. Unfortunately, most people don't find out about them until it's too late.
Flexibility
If you want to change to a different web host provider because they've been too slow or have been going down too often, it's simple to sign up with a new hosting company, log in to your DNS account and change your IP address for your domain name to your new web host, copy up your web site and in no time at all, your site is back up. If you let your ISP or web host handle your DNS, you can expect this to take at least a couple of days. And on the Internet, that's a whole lot of time. Remember, any time you need to change your records at your registrar, it takes a couple of days for the changes to propagate throughout the Internet. This way, your name server records at your registrar are pointing to your DNS Hosting Company, which never changes, and modifying records there are instant.
Redundancy
You can set up two email accounts for your domain name and if one doesn't work the second one will accept your mail.
Control
It allows you to have total control over your DNS records without physically having to maintain your own servers.
Backup
This gives you a chance to make a mistake in your host selection and to move to another quickly if you don't like them. Try that if your web host is managing your DNS.
Growth
Let's say you've been up and running now for a while and business is great. You've upgraded your dial up to a broadband connection. You want to add a new domain and host it on your own server. 1. Register the new name. When you're registering, point the name servers to your DNS host. 2. Log into your DNS account and create a (A) record for your new domain name with the IP address of your broadband connection. 3. Get your web site on your server. 4. You're hosting! What a way to test new products or services.
How do you do it? What's that you say? You don't know anything about DNS protocol? Don't worry. The DNS hosts make it very simple for you manage your own records. In most cases, you only need a couple of the basic ones and they are very easy to set up through the hosts' manager screens.
Here are examples of a few basic records in your DNS structure that you will configure. I'll explain them below and show you how they are used in the DNS schema.
(A) Records - address. (A) Records are the most basic and important. They point a domain name to an IP address.
For example: Suppose you registered the domain name "yourdomain.com". After you sign up at your hosting company for your web site, you will get the host computer name that your site will be located on in your welcome email. Let's say your host computer's IP address is "151.201.21.123". What you do is set up an (A) record that specifies that anyone looking for "yourdomain.com" should be sent to the IP address of 151.201.21.123.
(CNAME) Records - Canonical Name. (CNAME) records are the DNS equivalent of aliases.
This record's function is to point a hostname to another hostname. Not an IP address. They can point to any hostname on any domain anywhere in the world, regardless of who owns the domain or where it is located. (CNAME) records require that both the destination host and the destination host's A record (IP address) be returned in order to properly resolve. The most popular use of a CNAME record is to point to your own alias records. Such as WWW or FTP or MAIL.
(MX) Records - Mail Exchanger. (MX) records identify the mail server(s) that are responsible for accepting mail for a particular domain name.
The record itself is made up of three parts.
- The domain name.
- The host name.
- The preference.
The domain name is your domain name.
The host name is the name of the mail server that will accept mail for you. Example "mail.yourdomain.com".This will usually be at your hosting company.
Preference The preference value is a number (usually between 0 and 100) that indicates which MX record to try to use first if more than one exists. A lower number will always be used before a higher number. You can define multiple (MX) records for your domain. The lowest preference value in the (MX) record will be tried first. If that host is not available, then the next higher preference record will be tried.
Caveats
MX records are not equivalent to e-mail addresses. They don't contain a user name, like name@yourdomain.com, only a hostname "yourdomain.com". The mail server itself for your domain handles everything before the @ on its own.
MX records should never point to a (CNAME) record, only a host name that has a valid (A) record. Weather the (A) record is yours or not.
You must have an email account on the server that you are pointing to in order for it to accept mail for your domain name. This is a great way to provide a backup system for your email. You can set up your DNS so that mail will be sent to your hosting company first. If they are having problems and cannot accept mail for you, your mail will be sent to your backup account that you choose automatically!
ecords and find the above (MX) records for your domain. It starts with the lowest preference, which is 10, so it tries to send the mail to mail.yourdomain.com. If that mail server is down or cannot accept mail for some reason, it will try to send to your second preference, which is mail.yourisp.com. Isn't this great? The chances of both of these mail servers being down at the same time are pretty slim. But if one or the other goes down, you will still get your email! Don't forget, from this example that you need to have an email account for yourisp.com at your ISP to accept mail for your domain name. Your host company already accepts mail for your domain name.
Here are 3 DNS hosting companies.
http://www.dnswiz.com They are less than $5.00 per month.
http://www.zoneedit.com They allow up to 5 domains for FREE.
Zoneedit also has another feature that you'll like. It's called mail forwarding. It allows you to get mail forwarded from anything@yourdomain.com to any account that you wish. What this means is that they will accept mail to anyone@yourdomain.com and automatically forward it to your ISP or FREE email account anywhere. This is perfect for a backup system.
The third one is verisign. If you've been around long enough, you know about their track record. It's not a free account, and I have never tried them yet because I haven't had to. But if something should go wrong with the other two, this is where I'll be.
http://www.verisign-grs.com/mdns
Below is an example of a DNS set up.
Record type |
hostname |
MX preference |
hostname/ip address |
A |
mydomain.com | 151.200.21.1 |
|
CNAME |
www.mydomain.com | mydomain.com |
|
CNAME |
mail.mydomain.com | mydomain.com |
|
CNAME |
ftp.mydomain.com | mydomain.com |
|
MX |
mydomain.com | 10 |
mail.mydomain.com |
MX |
mydomain.com | 20 |
mail.myisp.com |
Let's see what's happening here.
The first record sets up the domain name and the IP address of the computer that is hosting it.
The first CNAME record says that www.mydomain.com should be sent to mydomain.com which is resolved by the first A record. 151.200.21.1
The second CNAME record sets up the mail.mydomain.com.
The third CNAME record sets up the ftp.mydomain.com.
The two MX records state that any mail sent to mydomain.com will first be sent to the server at mail.mydomain.com which CNAME record says mydomain.com, which A record says 151.200.21.1
If there is a problem there and it can't accept mail, then mail will be routed to mail.myisp.com instead. The A record for mail.myisp.com is at the ISP.
DNS might seem a little tricky at first. But it's so powerfull and it leaves you in total control of your domain that it's worth learning it.