Hey Folks, hopefully someone can help with my noobiness setting up DNS.

Here's my scenario:

I just setup a new linode and am trying to get subdomains to work.

At my registrar (verio.com), I changed my zone file so the NS records point to ns1.linode.com and ns2.linode.com (I didn't change the main nameserver records). I also have updated the zone file A records to point to my linode ip address.

At linode-> dns-manager -> zone setup for my domain: I have setup the NS record also to ns1.linode.com and ns2.linode.com

So far, this works for www.example.com. Although, I must admit this was done soley by trial and error. Not sure what implications I have with the setting at the registrar.



Ok, now for the subdomains:

At my registrar, I setup a CNAME record to point sub1.example.com to example.com. I also setup the same record on my linode->dns-manager records.

After a shortwhile, sub1.example.com was working. The next day it was not working.



Any ideas? Have I hosed things up with the two DNS's out there? Thanks in advance for the help.

ps- I'm not running DNS on my linode.

You need to do that at linodes dns manager, not at your registers.
Why it probablyworked for a while was that your server had cached the details of your old nameserver, and was still using that..

Then when the cache expired it tried to use the linode ones and as such didnt get a hit

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ServerAdmin - www.our-lan.com
"Diplomacy is the art of saying nice doggy whilst looking for a really big stick"
"In my experiece, any attempt to make any system idiot proof will only challenge God to make a better idiot"

I'm not sure about having NS records in your zone that don't match the NS setting at the register (which is what goes into the TLD servers, I believe). It's probably legal, but it wouldn't surprise me to learn that some resolvers didn't handle it very well.

Another thought: are *all* of your various nameservers in sync? Remember, it's semi-random which one will be used, and there's no fallback if the first one responds, even negatively. You might poke at different servers using dig, which provides lots of useful info and gives very good control over exactly how the name is resolved.

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The irony is that Bill Gates claims to be making a stable operating system and Linus Torvalds claims to be trying to take over the world.
-- seen on the net

Thx all, got it working.

First, I made both dns match, including pointing my registrar to the linode nameservers. Then I added the CNAME records at the linode dns manager.

It's all been working swell for the past few days, so everything should have propagated around the 'nets by now.

Rock on!