Setting up a public facing nameserver

[deadkenny]

I'm using dnsmasq for local DNS caching and LAN DHCP in my Fedora Core 5 server and my small network has just one static public IP address with the LAN served by NAT. I run a mail and web server on the network and use my domain provider's nameservers to dish out the IP address for various sub domains with A records, and the MX record for the mail server.

However the domain provider (123reg) has screwed up in the last 24 hours and nothing is resolving. I believe it's their nameservers.

I was thinking I could set up a public facing nameserver within my network to serve the domain as a backup nameserver (e.g. define it as the third nameserver, as 123reg's servers are the first two).

Is there a way to get dnsmasq to serve up the A and MX records for the public side, or is it possible in fedora to have another DNS server do this job but still keep dnsmasq? Ideally if dnsmasq could do it all that would be great as it's easy to use and lightweight.

[sej7278]

you really don't want to get involved in doing your own dns, bind is like the worst piece of software as far as vulnerabilities go since sendmail! you can really set it up wrong if you don't know what you're doing. not sure if dnsmasq is even built for that kind of thing.

plus you have no resiliency if you're doing it yourself (other than if you're ns3 to 123reg).

i'd recommend dnsmadeeasy.com for complete control of your dns (with multiple redundancy). their 25 domain package is 60usd a year - and thanks to the crap dollar, that's 30 quid to you and i! you can move your dns completely away from 123reg then, just use them as a domain registrar.

[deadkenny]

Cheers. That sounds like the better option. I've also got a Zoneedit.com account which does a similar thing. Got it for dynamic DNS a long time back but don't need it now for that, but they manage DNS too. Only problem is I've changed zones too many times with them and now they charge. dnsmadeeasy.com sounds cheaper for bulk domains as zoneedit is $10 for one zone (domain). As I've got at least 5 domains it may be the better option than zonedit. I'll look into them.

[sej7278]

i think they do 3 domains for 15usd and various other options, i just go with the 25 domain one as it includes a couple of extra options, and i manage 10+ domains.

i use dyndns.org for their free dynamic dns, then just point a cname at it from dnsmadeeasy.