Setting up a Nameserver

[WhirlwindMonk]

All right, I have a website running on the local network at my college that my friends access through my ip address. I also own the rights to a domain name. From what I've researched, it appears that in order to link them, I'd need to set up a nameserver on my computer, but any tutorials I can find are above my current knowledge level. Basically, I have a few questions.

1. Is it even possible for me to set up a nameserver and link it to a domain name through the college's local network? Note, we are behind a proxy server.
2. Does anyone know of a more user-friendly program or tutorial that could help me? My knowledge of computers and the like is well above average, but nameservers are a new subject for me.
3. Would anyone who's done this before be willing to maybe write up a tutorial or somehow walk me through the process, or at least be willing to point me in the right direction and answer questions I have along the way?

Thanks for any help you can give me.

 

[superfly]

woah... that's quite something...

setting up a nameserver in itself is not difficult (i have my own one running on my local network here at home, took me less than half an hour to set up). your network is the problem.

let's break it down.

a nameserver is used my computers on the internet to translate a domain name into an IP address. so www.google.com becomes 209.85.135.147 (that's one of the many servers, it'll probably be different for you).

a domain name is a easy-to-remember name that can be resolved to an ip address. this is usually used on the internet.

now, when a domain name is used on the internet, it has to be purchased so that only 1 computer/server can use the domain name. i.e. you don't have 2 servers with the same domain name.

when a domain name is used in a local network, it does NOT have to be purchased. you can make up your own domain names if you want and use those. because they are on your internal network and will (should) never be visible to the internet outside.

thus my local/internal network at home has a top level domain of .lan.labs and all "sites" on my server are suffixed with .lan.labs, eg: phpmyadmin.lan.labs, openlp.lan.labs.

so that's the easy stuff, now comes your problem: your network.

i'm guessing that you're studying at college, and your computer is hooked up to the network there, and that you can therefore browse the internet. this means that there's ALREADY a nameserver on the network. as soon as you create your own nameserver on the network, and tell your computer to use your nameserver, you're not gonna be able to surf the net. your friends are all gonna have to manually set their computers to use your nameserver too, and then they won't be able to surf the net either.

so you have 2 options as i see it.

the preferable one would be to ask the network administrators if they could please add a domain name to their nameserver which fits in with their internal domain and points to your machine. that way everyone has no need to worry about changing nameservers and surfing the net, etc.

the other one would be to set up a nameserver (i usually use bind) and then set it to forward on to the internal nameserver for requests outside it's domain (using the forward { } option in bind).

now, if you're using a linux machine, it's a cinch to set up, but if using windows, don't ask me for help, i have NO idea...

 

[pgp_protector]

Cheat.

If it's only for a few people and if you have a fixed IP address, have them edit there host file to add
yourdomainname.com 127.0.0.1 (or your actual IP address)

 

[WhirlwindMonk]

I can pretty much guarantee the school isn't going to add my stuff to their nameserver. Too much trouble for them with little gain, plus, with finals coming up, I don't really have time at the moment to play with things.

Here's another option, that's probably a lot better. I have a bunch of spare parts back home that I can probably use to set up a linux box and host my site from there. It's off-campus so I wouldn't have to deal with their nameserver or the proxy. Would it be difficult to set up that linux box back home so that it maps the stuff to a domain name and I can access the site from anywhere? What distro would you suggest? I'll grab it while I have access to the school's T1 line so I can start as soon as I get home. Also, I assume I don't need very strong hardware. What would you recommend?

 

[wiggsfly]

I've played this game for the department I work for at the Unviersity here. We wanted a dynamic website, the university said no so we set up our own webserver, dns, etc.

I would suggest that if this is a site you're going to want to be involved in for some tine you should just spend a few bucks a month for something like hostgator and let them do the work for you. For $3-4 a month you can get a fairly descent plan with php, etc.

 

[WhirlwindMonk]

I've played this game for the department I work for at the Unviersity here. We wanted a dynamic website, the university said no so we set up our own webserver, dns, etc.

I would suggest that if this is a site you're going to want to be involved in for some tine you should just spend a few bucks a month for something like hostgator and let them do the work for you. For $3-4 a month you can get a fairly descent plan with php, etc.

I've worked with hosting companies before and really have little desire to do so again. Also, this is something I've always been curious about and would like to learn to do, and I don't have the money right now to pay for hosting.

 

[wiggsfly]

No problem, what server software are you looking at using? I'm running all these services on Win 2000/2003 and would be glad to help you get configured. PM me with any questions you might have.

 

[superfly]

i wouldn't trust ANYTHING on a windows box!!

 

[pgp_protector]

i wouldn't trust ANYTHING on a windows box!!

That's fine, some of us don't have a problem working with windows or getting it to work

 

[superfly]

yeah, well, I'm not masochistic!

 

[pgp_protector]

yeah, well, I'm not masochistic!

So why do you use Linux then

 

[utdbear]

All right, I have a website running on the local network at my college that my friends access through my ip address. I also own the rights to a domain name. From what I've researched, it appears that in order to link them, I'd need to set up a nameserver on my computer, but any tutorials I can find are above my current knowledge level. Basically, I have a few questions.

1. Is it even possible for me to set up a nameserver and link it to a domain name through the college's local network? Note, we are behind a proxy server.
2. Does anyone know of a more user-friendly program or tutorial that could help me? My knowledge of computers and the like is well above average, but nameservers are a new subject for me.
3. Would anyone who's done this before be willing to maybe write up a tutorial or somehow walk me through the process, or at least be willing to point me in the right direction and answer questions I have along the way?

Thanks for any help you can give me.

Your domain host should also be able to do basic name services as you require. Remember that if you have broadband access, you'll have to change it every time your dynamic IP address changes.

 

[pgp_protector]

Your domain host should also be able to do basic name services as you require. Remember that if you have broadband access, you'll have to change it every time your dynamic IP address changes.

Not if they they use http://www.no-ip.com/

They can set the Web DNS Servers to point to no-ip.com & no-ip.com will then point to there computer (even with a dynamic IP address) We use it at my job for a few things.