Web Hosting > DNS
Added on 12/11/2007
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How to host your own Website.
Configuring DNS Server
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What's a DNS (Domain Name Server)?
it's a server that translates your Domain Name ,easy for humans to remember (www.mysite.com) into
a numeric IP address (000.000.000.000) that computers can understand. And, if you wonder why, the answer is this: the IP address is the numeric code
that has been given to your computer(actually to your connection) by your ISP
(Internet Service Provider)and that's how it is known on the net in the computer language
but, because
all these numbers are very hard to remember for us, humans and may cause
confusion, somebody very clever had the idea to put a
simple name, for instance www.mysite.com as a human way to call your site and that simply represents the IP
address, obviously ,when you type a website address in your browser there is a
Domain Name Server,that translates that name into a IP Address .
There are 2 types of DNS Server names that you need, the one your ISP gives you with the IP address and the DNS servers that translates your IP into your domain name.
You'll learn more about the first one on the Configure your router section, but it has nothing to do with the DNS Server you need
for your website and that you'll have to type in the proper box where you
registered your domain name .
More confusion?
This is, for instance, what the DNS Server your ISP gave you does when you type on the web browser the name of a website ,www.google.com ,for
example, the web browser asks your ISP
DNS Server to convert www.google.com into an IP address, your ISP DNS Server will get this from www.google.com DNS Server
which is hosted somewhere on the net.(In your case ,Zoneedit.com will do this
service for you.
The DNS Server for your website is the one that translates your domain name into your IP and
vice versa and provides to all the requests
from the net for your website.
Where do we find these DNS Servers? Theoretically you could run your own DNS Server but, since it's
quite
complicated, it's much better get
this service from the net. You can find many providers for this service but I choose
www.zoneedit.com,first because it is free and secondly because
it's easy to edit and configure in a very intuitive web interface.
Once you have the names of the DNS Servers You will have to type them in the
appropriate place on the website you have registered your domain name in this case with www.domainmonger.com
go on the page below and type the DNS Servers you obtained from
www.zoneedit.com in the spot marked in red
You can visit
www.zoneedit.comand you can have your DNS Servers for free.
Let us see how:
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First step you go on the home page and you'll have to register giving all your details
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Then, after you login as a member you'll get to a page like this one
Click
Add Zone
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Now all you have to do, is to type your domain name in the text box for example "mywebsite.com" and click
on Add Zone
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You'll get this page, where ,as you can read, it reminds you to go where you
registered you domain name and change the names of the DNS Servers.
Until then your web site won't be visible on the net.
When you have done it ,this message will not appear any more.
-
Then you click "Start editing Zone"
- And on this page you'll be able to configure your zone file on a very easy web interface.
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First you start with the IP address,
just click on IP Addresses and the following page appear,enter your site name and the IP address your ISP gave you
and click "Add New Address"
-
you will be prompted with this message. I recommend to choose both ways
because if somebody will
tape on the web browser yoursite.com instead of www.yoursite.com will get there
anyway. Also, as you can see they still warn you to change your name servers on your register,cool eh?
Here you've got the confirm of what you've done.
-
now you can start editing your zone, on this page you have the name servers
that you have to change on your domain name register web site
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Next step you can choose how and where you want your email sent.
You can have your email directed to your web server or to an email address currently working,
now we'll see how:
As you can see on the previous figure, by default, zoneedit sets the email to your new domain
to be forwarded to the email address you gave when you registered on this site,
if you want to change it
just click "MailForward" and and change the destination address
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The other option, and the one I choose, is to have your own mail server.
The first step is to delete the Mail Forward so click on Mail Foward ,on the next page click delete. Then go back on View
your site and click on Mail Servers
On the next Page tape the name of your server on the left and the name of your domain mail
destination on the right
-
Congratulation!
Now the zone file for your domain is been configured
and in 2/3 days, will be ready to respond at all the requests from the net
and direct your emails to your servers.
The
next step will be
Installing and configuring IIS
Here a nice tool to check whether your site is been registered and all the
details of your registration click
whois and
on this page just enter the
name of yous site :
click search and you
should get this page where you can see your site details
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