hello everyone.
i am new to virtualmin/webmin which i installed on a hosted vps from peakservers.com.
i'm running centos 6 with one ip address.
i am also new to vps hosting and having this degree of control.
there sure a lot of settings to wade thru. cool.
my intention is to host 3 domains that i currently control.
i see my one apache server and can connect to it.
i see settings for master and slave zones, virtual hosts and virtual servers.
perhaps i will need them to do this.
i may have many questions along the way.
what really concerns me at the moment are name servers.
how to create them so i can point one my domains to my apache server for instance.
since i want to host 3 domains perhaps i need slave zones or virtual servers
with their own name servers. i don't know.
i've been to the bind dns server page in webmin.
there are 6 dns zones. a root zone and 5 master zones.
i see in the master zones where to input name servers.
is this relevant?
i've read a couple posts at
https://www.virtualmin.com/node/6827
and
https://www.virtualmin.com/node/22091
i'm a little confused.
thank you for some help with the basics.
You only need one nameserver (as in service on your VPS) to host any number of DNS zones. Virtualmin will create the zones automatically when you create the "virtual server", provided you turn on the "DNS" feature.
You also need to tell the registrar (the place where you register/manage the domain) that the nameserver(s) for the domain is/are your VPS(es).
If you wish to host DNS zones, it's best to get an additional domain, an "administrative domain", and give your server(s) hostnames under that. So you don't mix up zones you wish to host and those that are required for your nameservers to be found.
thank you for your reply.
it's nice to have a direction in which to proceed.
so i have another domain available to use as you suggested.
peakservers wants a hostname in the nameserver format *.mydomain.com.
this name shows up as my default nameserver for master domains.
so if i change the system hostname to ns1.urgleen.ga (my 4th domain)
this would be the single nameserver you spoke of?
if i create 3 virtual servers for 3 domains. i will have 3 dns zones.
i register my nameserver with each domain registrar.
the request comes to my server for a page in a particular domain.
for instance purpleearth.org.
the server routes the request for that domain page to the proper dns zone and virtual server?
and this is because of the domain name and not the nameserver.
urgleen.ga and the ip address that peakservers gave me will only resolve to pages i have in the
var/www/html folder in the apache server? is this close?
You can change the system hostname to "ns1.*", but you don't have to. You can use some more appropriate name, like "myserver.myadmindomain.com" and have "ns1.myadmindomain.com" as an additional hostname pointing to the same IP. Then you enter that hostname manually as "default nameserver for master domains" in the Virtualmin template
Yes, at each registrar you say that "ns1..." is the responsible nameserver for the respective domains. Notice that oftentimes you're required to have at least two nameservers for a domain.
When a request comes in, your registrar is queried first, who says "ns1... is responsible". Then your nameserver is queried who'll tell the user what IP your domain has. The request is sent to Apache on that IP, also telling it the domain that the user wants. Thus Apache knows what content to serve (hostname-based virtual hosting, i.e. many domains on the same IP).
/var/www is NOT used in Virtualmin. Virtualmin places the virtual servers' contents in /home/DOMAIN/... This is because the version of suexec (to execute PHP scripts in the context of the virtual server's user, and not the webserver which would be a security risk) that Virtualmin uses is set to only execute stuff from /home/...
thanks again for taking the time to help me with my concerns...
i changed my system hostname to abacus1.urgleen.ga
the only place i could find to manually input the default nameserver for master domains,
was in webmin/bind dns server/zone defaults/ where the default nameserver for master domains
was listed as abacus1.urgleen.ga. there was an option to manually enter a different one. i did not.
then in virtualmin/system settings/server templates/bind dns domain/ was the only place
i found to enter "additional manually configured nameservers" where i entered ns1.urgleen.ga.
when i created a virtual server for purpleearthpoetry.com both nameservers show up under
virtualmin/server configuration/dns records/ as this domains nameservers.
my ip now resolves to this virtual server. i've changed the records at the domain's registrar.
the domain name isn't working yet.
i don't think i'm doing it right though because when i add another virtual server for another domain
in just the same way, the bind server will not start.
the virtual servers are master zones. should they be?
respectfully submitted, this day...
You don't necessarily have to use "ns1", "ns2" and so on for your nameservers, you can also just use the name you chose for the server, "abacus1". It's more like a convention to use "nsN".
The place to configure the master DNS server hostname is in the template, section "BIND DNS domain", right under the place you found for "additional secondary nameservers".
It can take a while for new/changed domains to work worldwide, since changes need to propagate. You can do quick tests using the website "intodns.com".
When you say "the BIND server will not start", what exactly happens? What error messages do you get?
Yes, the zones you create on the primary Virtualmin server need to be master zones.
posted a message but decided to wait. seems i'm locked into posting a message.
so, hope you are having a fun day
good day!
well it seems like i'm getting somewhere.
regarding the BIND server not starting, i think it was because i used the same description for both servers. i didn't understand it would be significant, thinking it was a back-end reference description type thing. BIND DNS Server working fine now with 3 virtual zones.
sorry for the waste of your consideration...
all 3 domains are resolving to my server by domain name.
i do get some errors at intoDNS for each zone that are the same for each one.
they are:
purpleearth.org
purpleearthpoetry.com
glassmarimba.com.
my ip 67.211.45.197 resolves to the first virtual zone i created, purpleearthpoetry.com
is this normal?
i included some dns config pics from virtualmin/webmin.
i've wondered about the top field being empty in the BIND DNS Server template.
so not by way of asking advice, after my domains started resolving last night, i took a break and
tried installing ffmpeg and ffmpeg php using a very helpful post by
daniel stavrovski at
https://d.stavrovski.net/blog/install-ffmpeg-and-ffmpeg-php-in-centos-6-....
everything seemed go with aplomb. it was a lot of fun. the install test was positive.
i then tried "make test" to test how well it worked with php and unfortunately we experienced
catastrophic failure. failed 21 of 29 tests with 8 skipped.
this in no way takes away from mr stavrovski's tutorial. i'm sure it's accurate
and it's worth checking out.
watching the terminal cascade with code during install was new.
i was like, who can right this stuff?
i was humbled...
thank you for all your help. it's made a big difference.
urg