What is a DNS server?

Have DNS Server, Static IP, Domain, What Next?

• Hi I want to run my own DNS Server which sits behind a router. I have a couple of static IP addresses and a newdomain.com How can I set up the DNS Server in order that someone from the Internet can type newdomain.com and gets directed to my server ( same machine as DNS Server )? Thanks Is this possible? David

• Answer:

  The main part of this is to make sure that your DNS server is authoritative for your domain name. This is done with the registrar of the domain. For example, let's say that you purchased your domain from GoDaddy. In the properties of your domain on the GoDaddy site, there is a section for the DNS servers associated with your domain. If you just have the one DNS server, put only that one in. If you want some fault-tolerance in case your DNS server is down, you can add GoDaddy's servers in as well. The only caveat is that most of the domain registrars aren't going to synchronize DNS changes with your DNS server in a typical master/slave setup, so you'd have to manually make DNS changes on the outside DNS servers whenever you make changes on your own server. You don't say what DNS server you're running (Windows, BIND, etc), but the next step is to create a zone on the server for your domain, then populate it with the appropriate records (most likely A records and MX records).