Anyone have experience with ZoneEdit.com? (DNS, Nameservers)

Life Technology
1

Has anyone used DNS Service at ZoneEdit.com?

Can anybody suggest an alternative??

I am setting up my own linux box on a seednet DSL line. Let’s say I have a domain called, hmmm, “F.com”, and I have registered this wilth GoDaddy.com (a domain name registrar)

For my domain to point to my box on seednet, I also need a DNS Service (aka nameserver?)

GoDaddy.com has a Nameserver section, but you can only enter nameserver names, not Nameserver IP addresses.

This brings me to ZoneEdit.com – which I found on a google search

Any advice or comment on these services?

2

Do you have a static IP with seednet? If not, you’ll need a Dynamic DNS service. I can’t remember if GoDaddy allows you to change the “A Address” or “CNAME” records. I think that might be the reason I switched to NameCheap instead.

Since it’s so cheap to transfer these days, I’d recommend switching over to NameCheap and using their DDNS service or pointing the domain to your IP by using the A or CNAME feature. I think I’m paying $9 for the domain registration.

That being said, I hope you have a decent upstream speed on your DSL line…

3

If you have a static DNS line, which I’m guessing you don’t unless you specifically requested it, you can establish your domain name using a variety of DNS services.

I use dyndns.org/. They have a free service for both static and dynamic addresses, but if you opt for their free service, your domain name will be a subdomain of their dyndns.org (like mydomain.dyndns.org).

If you want them to point directly to your static or dynamic domain name (like mydomain.org), it costs USD25/year.

If you have a static address, you can set up the domain name server on your linux box, for free obviously. The problem is that it’s a bit of a pain and even if you get it working, unless you really know what you are doing, you may be throwing little monkey wrentches into the domain name structure.

My understanding is that you can request a static address from your ISP for not a whole lot of money, like a couple hundred extra NT a month.

I used to have my dns server working on my linux box, then when I installed Fedora Core 2, available from http://fedora.redhat.com/, I was so busy at the time I decided I wasn’t up to configuring the DNS server. Also, I decided that since I didn’t really know what I was doing, the socially responsible thing to do was to simply pay for DNS service that (I presume) was being configured properly and that worked (I’m certain) efficiently. I’ve been very happy with service from dyndns.org.

The good news is that on your new linux box, you’ll find it fairly easy to set up all the other servers: ftp, html, mysql, mail, etc. For IMAP and POP3, use the Dovecot server. It’s not the default but it’s by far the easiest to configure.

Finally, I highly recommend installing Fedora if you’re going the Red Hat route. The Taiwan mirror site for download is located at IShou University, and the URL is: http://ftp.isu.edu.tw/pub/Linux/Fedora/linux/core/ for http and ftp://ftp.isu.edu.tw/pub/Linux/Fedora/linux/core/ for ftp. I downloaded the 4 discs at my college and they downloaded lightening fast. Maybe it’s the cocktails talking, but if you can’t download it, let me know and I’ll send you the discs.

Finally, your choice of using GoDaddy is a good one as far as I’m concerned. I’ve been with them for a couple of years and have had no problems. Of course, we always have good things to say about these services until something goes wrong, right? In any case, their prices are about as low as you’re going to get and their site and services are easy to navigate and use.

4

Hi

Yes, used ZoneEdit.com for about 3yrs great service, very reliable… esp as it is free. Pretty much unlimited subdomains can be created and you can control all aspects of the DNS.

Simply update the nameserver records at GoDaddy to point to them (they will provide the IP addresses and name).

As other have said getting a fixed IP is the best thing (I even think it helps a bit with speed, I used to use VoIP with dynamic IP, once i got a fixed IP the line quality was infinatly better).

If you don’t have a fixed IP then they have details on how your server can inform there’s if your IP changes ensuring visitors will always be routed to you. http://www.zoneedit.com/doc/dynamic.html

If you want to do something like offer free email on your site you can update the MX record to point to the ‘sponsored mail’ service offered by http://www.everyone.net (although lots of pop up ads). If mail is just for you add a ‘mailforward’ to forward all messages to your default account (ie: hotmail). Of course if the box is for a business you most likely will have created a mail server on it anyway.

Also a little trick, :wink: they allow 4 domains hosted for free, you could open multiple accounts using different email addresses and point them all to the same linux box… I was hosting about 10 domains on my linux box for a while.

I have the basic ADSL connection, so upload speeds to the web are slow. If this is what you are using it will mean slow page loads for visitors. But hey, the advantage of free hosting is a plus…

5

Thanks, it’s static IP, and there’s only two domains to worry about right now. Good to know about the multiple subdomains.