Initial config with new server, domain and 2 IP adresses

[eddie-prefere]

Thank you Falko and thank you for the tutorials on "perfect server with ..." They have helped me twice now, and I really appreciate it.

The one thing that I need more help understanding - which has always been a problem for me with your tutorials (both lenny and ispconfig2 and squeeze + ISPConfig 3) - and it's not adequately covered in the documentation or manual - is the very first step. So I will post a thread on this:

Basically, your guide to installing the perfect server doesn't address the following in terms many of us newbies can understand:

I order my first real dedicated server and I am given 2 IP addresses. I must use a domain, so I choose "domain.com". and that is assignedIP #1. I go to my registrar and create child nameservers ns1.domain.com and ns2.domain.com and give them IP #1 and IP #2 - OR is this already a mistake, since how can IP #1 work for BOTH domain.com and ns1.domain.com ? SO, do I have to create child namservers of domain.com and ns2.domain.com ? This is unclear and seems crucial. I have tried it BOTH ways and still cannot get a dig with ns2.domain.com to return anything for any domain. Also, I cannot get the webmail to work for my main domain, domain.com.

I saw your guide about how to do this, but it says you need 2 servers. So, it is unclear to me if you mean 2 actual hardware servers or 2 virtual instances on a server - OR do you mean creating 2 servers - without virtualization - on 1 dedicated server? - ISPConfig3 doen't let me add another server.

So, I am hoping someone will help with this very first step - which I really want to get right.

Thanks;

Eddie

[Mark_NL]

The configuration of the ISPConfig system falls outside the scope of the "Perfect How-to's" for installing them.

Just register the 2 IP's at your registrar as being the "Authoritative" servers for "domain.com. (You can use hostnames, if your registrar supports glue records)

"A glue record is the IP address of a name server held at the domain name registry.
Glue records are required when you wish to set the name servers of a domain name to a hostname under the domain name itself."

When you've done that, all dns lookup requests for "*.domain.com" will be forwarded to one of those 2 IP's. From that point on, it's up to what you enter in de DNS admin part of the ISPConfig web interface.

[eddie-prefere]

Thanks for your response. Of course I have already done this. I am wondering if the tutorial on "How To Run Your Own DNS Servers (Primary And Secondary) With ISPConfig 3 (Debian Squeeze) "

actually requires you to have two stand-alone servers or two virtual server instances - or is that use of the word "server" referring to something else?

In other words, can that tutorial be sucessfully completed with one (1) un-virtualized server?

Thanks.

Edddie

[Mark_NL]

Well, if you keep it on one server, then there's no real secondary dns server. It's the same server that hosts the 2nd ip.

You can use 2 physical servers or 2 vm's to set up a more real pri/sec dns server setup.

It can be completed, just ignore all the replicating stuff, just set up the primary server and you're done.

[eddie-prefere]

Thanks for your response Mark.

Youll be glad to know that I bought the ISPConfig 3 Manual!

I installed the squeeze for amd_64 with courier and ispconfig3

I added the symbolic links to use "webmail" as shown in the guide.

I have followed the instructions very carefully, and now cannot access any squirrelmail or webmail - a security pop-up box appears and tells me that it is downloading a file called "webmail".

when I "intodns.com" the server's main domain, net-speed.com, and two add-on domains, compulistings.com and internetbillingcenter.biz, I get no errors.

I have a feeling that I am still missing something in the DNS zone area. Would you tell me if the following looks like a good setup, please?

I set ns1.net-speed.com to IP1 and ns2.net-speed.com to IP2 - GLUE is good.

My server is called "net-speed.com" and has IP1

1.) Did I make a fatal mistake by using the domain net-speed.com as the server hostname (instead of something like server.net-speed.com) ?

2.) I added IP2 to the servers' IP address list in ISPConfig3. IP1 was already there. Was this the right thing to do? The manual doesn't cover when or why one would do this. (I also added 2 DNS servers that the server provider let me use as local resolvers for he server, IP3 and IP4. I veriied that all 4 IP's are in the /etc/resolv.conf file along with 127.0.0.0.)

3.) Is it recommended to use IP1, IP2 or * when adding web sites in ISPConfig3. The difference between these is not dealt with in the manual.

All websites are resolving, but I cannot get webmail on individual sites, only at the ip1:8080/squirrelmail URL.

I appreciate your help,

Ed

[till]

1) You can not use net-speed.com for email addresses now on that server. If you plan to use this server as emailserver as well for domain net-speed.com, you will have to reconfigure the hostname in /etc/hostname, /etc/hosts, /etc/mailname and postfix main.cf file.

2) Thats ok. You add all IP addresses there that you want to use on your server. But dont forget to add the IP in the network card settings of your linux distribution too as described in the manual.

3) See pages 87, 241 and 245 of the manual. You select the IP address where the domain points to in dns or *, if its not a ssl website and no other website is assigned to that IP already. If you select the IP address as shown in chapter 5.3, then you are on the safe side.