A general question

[Kevin Darcy]

Martin Mull wrote:

> I would like to get some advice on the following:
> My internet company (X) gave us 5 IP addresses for use. Our net mask
> is something like 255.255.255.248. I will register a domain name
> mydomain.com with another company (Y).  I am running RedHat Linux in a
> box that uses one of the IP addresses and also serves as a router for
> a local network.  I want to setup a DNS server in such Linux box.  My
> company Y, when I try to setup my domain name, asks for a DNS server
> and that is where I want to put my server's name (ip address)
> Am I thinking in the right way or this is not feasible?  Any
> suggestions will be greatly appreciated.

I assume "company Y" is a domain registrar.

Yes, this is feasible. But, there may be a sticking point: if your
registrar requires your nameservers to have records in reverse DNS, and
company X has not already created reverse records for the addresses in
your range, then you'll have to work with them on getting those records
added.

Even if company X has reverse records for your addresses, they may be
pointing to names in the "wrong" domain (e.g. 12-23-34-45.companyX.net),
so you may wish to get them changed after you get the mydomain.com domain
up and running.

Note that it's theoretically possible to run your *own* reverse DNS for
your addresses, but this requires some co-operation from the provider of
those addresses. Since you have less than a /24 address range, company X
would have to play some games to accomplish this, e.g. delegating each of
the 5 addresses as a separate zone to your nameservers, or using the
aliasing tricks of RFC 2317 to "classlessly delegate" control of those
addresses to your nameservers.


- Kevin