How to Manage Your DNS ====================== BaseSpace.net clients can manage their own DNS zone files. If you are going to do this, we assume that you are already familiar with the basics of the Domain Name system. Editing your current zone files ------------------------------- On the primary BaseSpace.net server, the directory /home//dns/zones contains all your currrently used zone files. You can edit any of these zone files. Remember to update the serial number. When you are done editing, run the command dns-update to load your changes into the running server. You must be in your client directory in order for this command to work. If you made a change to a zone file but forgot to update the serial number, dns-update will, as a convenience, probably detect this error condition. Adding a new zone file ---------------------- To add a new zone, create the zone file in your /home//dns/zones directory, and run dns-update as usual. However, the new zone will not be added to named.conf until an automated process regenerates that file, which happens every hour. Zone file tips and tricks ------------------------- - Whenever you update a zone file, be sure to update the serial number at the top of the file 99012 ; serial Just increment it by one. - The special symbol "@" means "the zone this file is associated with in named.conf", which given the way we auto-generate named.conf is just the name of the zone. - if the left hand column of the zone file is empty, it means use the same thing as the last record - if you leave an unqualified name without an ending "." it will automatically be qualified with the current zone name. Taking all of these into consideration, you can actually use the following "generic" zone file for any domain whose web site you are hosting on your machine: $TTL 86400 @ IN SOA ns1.basespace.net. root.ns1.basespace.net. ( 1001 ; serial 28800 ; refresh 3600 ; retry 604800 ; expire 86400 ; default_ttl ) IN A 207.106.87. IN NS gibraltar.basespace.net. IN MX 10 .basespace.net. www IN CNAME .com.