If you own a domain, you can either host DNS yourself or have a provider
do it. Most web hosts will host your DNS for you, although generally you
have little or no ability to make/change your own DNS entries.
I own my own domain, and manage all of the domains my company owns. I
have my own DNS server running on my personal server that I keep in a
colo in NYC. I also have a pair of DNS servers for my office - one is in
a colo in NYC, and another is in a colo in TX.
DNSStuff.com gets you good information, although tools like nslookup and
dig will get you a lot of the same info. The nice thing about
DNSStuff.com is that it will tell you if your mail server is on some
sort of spam blacklist. It saves you time by aggregating a bunch of
tests together, and bringing a bunch of information to you in one
interface. I saw an ad for them the other day that was targeted to CEO's
and it basically said "you don't know us, but your IT department does"
or something to that effect.
Generally, if you're going to host your own email and DNS, you want to
make sure that you have reverse DNS set up for the IP that your mail
server connects as. If your mail server makes a SMTP connection to
another server and it doesn't have any sort of reverse DNS, many servers
will not allow the connection.
DHSinclair wrote:
j maccraw,
Does this mean that Thane is running his own DNS
server (local)? I would think that I would not have this
level of access to a DNS server (OpenDNS or Bellsouth).
Best,
Duncan
At 16:02 11/02/2007 -0700, you wrote:
Simple- make sure you have root access to the
authoritative DNS servers and your
zone files will never be wrong unless you make a
fubar!
dnsstuff.com's dnsreport seems to give great info.
Thane Sherrington wrote:
> I'm seeing more small companies hosting their own
domain (or getting it
> hosted outside their ISP) and more and more of them
run into problems
> sending or recieving mail. Sometimes the mail gets
blocked as spam,
> other times it appears to go into the bit bucket. I
know that some
> hosting companies don't correctly setup DNS
information, and I was
> wondering if the gurus on the collective know of a
way I can check the
> configuration for a domain and see if it's set
correctly (I've looked a
> services such as www.dnswatch.info). If anyone has
some advice on this,
> I'd really appreciate it, because the hosting
companies all take the
> same "it's not our problem" line, and I'm not
knowledgable enough ask
> the right questions.
>
> T
>
>
>
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