Reverse DNS Question

[Kevin Darcy]

Wiffle Boy wrote:

> I have a DNS setup for our domain and we are paying another company to
> host a web site for us.  We own the DNS, they just provide us an IP
> address for the www server.  We have put that into the zone file for
> the domain.
>
> My question, since the IP address of the www server is not on the same
> subnet as the DNS, do I need to setup the reverse dns zone file for
> it?

If all you want to do is provide your nameserver, and all of the stub
resolvers and/or forwarders which use it, with a reverse record for your
webserver's address, then you could set up a reverse zone in your
nameserver for just that one IP address, e.g. the 4.3.2.1.in-addr.arpa
zone. But if you want the *world* to be able to reverse-resolve that
IP address, whomever owns the reverse domain corresponding to the
network/subnet on which the webserver is located, e.g.
3.2.1.in-addr.arpa, would need to add an entry for the webserver's
address to their DNS, if they haven't already done so. They could just
add a PTR record, a delegation to your nameserver(s), or an alias to a
name in a zone you control. The last two options would be more of a
bother, but would allow you to control the contents of the reverse
lookup.


- Kevin