Nothing, it's just in there



Generally speaking, the NS records on your domain should match the ones in the parent zone unless there's a good reason otherwise (e.g. shadow masters, etc). Since workshop and nameserver1 are the same IP, there's no good reason to keep an NS record pointing at workshop.



With BIND, the domain is optional if you're already within the context of a zone. So, instead of doing:

practicalhorseshoeing.net. IN SOA 1234 blah blah blah
practicalhorseshoeing.net. IN NS nameserver1.practicalhorseshoeing.net.
practicalhorseshoeing.net. IN NS nameserver2.practicalhorseshoeing.net.
nameserver1.practicalhorseshoeing.net. IN A 1.2.3.4
nameserver2.practicalhorseshoeing.net. IN A 4.3.2.1
www.practicalhorseshoeing.net. IN A 1.2.3.4

You can just do:

@ IN SOA 1234 blah blah blah
 IN NS nameserver1
 IN NS nameserver2
nameserver1 IN A 1.2.3.4
nameserver2 IN A 4.3.2.1
www IN A 1.2.3.4

It's been awhile since I've looked it up, but I believe the @ is what "homes" everything to the current zone. (This is handy if, later on in a zone file, you change it with $ORIGIN).

This not only saves typing, but if you have a bunch of domains that need the exact same records, you can use the same zone file and save a LOT of typing!



There's a reason they require a minimum of two nameservers, you know. -rt

Thanks. I've added a record for the domain without the www. prefix, as queries for www.blah worked but those for blah didn't, and taken out the nameserver1 record. I'm avoiding shorthand notation for the time being. And yes, I do need a second name server -- this first point of the exercise was educational, and you've been a great help. Thank you.

The solution to the nslookup problem also required revision to /etc/resolv.conf. This had to set the domain to that of the server (rather than the linode default), comment out the "search" directive in the linode default file, and place "nameserver 127.0.0.1" ahead of the linode nameservers. With those edits, nslookup works fine.

Finally, I'll close the loop on my initial question about registering name servers at GoDaddy. I had to first register the hosts and IP addresses of the nameservers (workshop.blah.net and nameserver2.blah.net) in their Host Summary section (with the "add" button). I could then designate these hosts as the name servers. Those hosts' names had to match up with host addresses established in the zone file. GoDaddy wasn't helpful answering questions, but they weren't the problem, and changes to the host registrations and name server designations seemed to happen pretty quickly.

Cool! Looks solid from here.

Once you know what you're looking for, GoDaddy's interface for adding glue isn't too shabby, and it supports IPv6-only records, too. I keep a domain there just for that, alas.