Domain Newbie

Alrighty, I'll just claim, right off the bat, that I have never done this before, and am therefore quite boggled and lost.

I bought my first domain, dustysouls.net, and am planning on hosting it on my own box. I have no idea what to put in the dns field. I have tried my ip, my ip with the apache port (:80) and numerous other thing. I also did a reverse dns from my ip and tried to put that in there to no avail.

My domain is registered with http://www.domainforless.net/ if that helps. My isp doesn't like the idea of me hosting it, but if they hosted it, I would only have 15 megs of space, which is of no use to me.

I have tried looking through the net for some info on it, but that's where I ended up be boggled.

I have no idea what to do and am open to trying just about anything Any help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

So you just want help with hosting your domain? sounds like were you asking apache (webserver) questions there.

Second question... what do you have so far? What kind of DNS server do you have? What do your config files look like so far?

ah geez, I'm sorry for confuzing you. I tend to babble when I'm frustrated :)

Ok, I grabbed an xp version of bind, and I did a "DB dump" when I saw "ns1cv.gv.shawcable.NET" I put that in for DNS1 and it worked. But I have a feeling that won't point the domain to my computer. Is there something else I should be putting in there with it, like my ip or something? (sorry about being clueless, but I've always had my site hosted on other peoples domains and never had to dig deep in any guts like this before.)

*Apologizes profusely for babbling* :)

apologizing for babbling IS a babble

Let's start at square one. You have a domain right? What is your domain and what info did you use to register it with?

http://dustysouls.net . What do you mean by "what info did I register it with"? I had to give them my name, address etc.

nah, I don't need your name, address, or life story, but I do want to know if you told the company you registered your domain with, the DNS servers that serves the information relating to that domain. Cause, every domain needs to have an associated dns server. And it is the registrar that you tell where the server is located (dns server IP) and what it is called (dns server domain).

Well, I have a screen capture of the dns fields from before I tried to put my ip in. I hope this is what you asked for, because this is all the info that the registrar gives me.

Well the registrar seems to think that these are your dns servers:

http://serialcoders.sytes.net/cgi-b...&lr=1&submit=DS

Neither server works for your domain though. Are they the correct servers?

No, they are not, as far as I know. I did a dump in BIND and grabbed those because they are shaw (my isp) and to see if it would except them. I wasn't sure at the time what a dns "address" should look like.

I don't know how to get the DNS for my computer. I've done some reading on it, but apparently I have to make one, but again, I don't know how.

Is there a certain program I need to do that?

Well, the records I showed you is what needs to be changed. They need to point to your IP address. the registrar should provide the means of adding 1 or more server domains AND IP addresses. Something like:

ns1.dustysouls.net - 127.0.0.1
ns2.dustysouls.net - 127.0.0.1

I have 2 entries cause usually registrars require 2 dns server domains, but you can set both to the same IP if you want. You tell it both that domain and that IP address (well, not THAT IP address, but rather YOUR IP address). You can easily get your IP address at:

www.whatismyip.com

So if you are unable to get your domain registry setup to point to your IP address, then contact them and ask them to do it for you.

Ok, I tried that ns1.dustysouls.net - myip but I got this error message instead. "(626) DnsNS1 has not been registered, modification failed." Should I just send them an email and ask them why I get that and see if they can change it?

Also, once I have it directed here, will it automatically be detected by bind (or apache)?

That sounds like a complaint somebody else has made whom I had helped:

http://www.serverexpert.com/viewtopic.php?t=700

In brief, his domain registration form had a bug with an error that is a lot like the one you described, and I told him to go complain to his registrar and he did and got the problem fixed. Read that topic, maybe you'll learn something.

Ok, I've written to them asking for them to explain why it won't work.

Thanks for your help

Well, I finally got a response from my registrar...but I'm not quite sure what it means...

"Though you have registered the domain name dustysouls.net you have not
registered the name server ns1.dustysouls.net.

If you wish to register the name server with us there is a charge of $100.
This includes the dedicated IP Addresses, registration and full technical
support."

All I want is for the domain dustysouls.net to be hosted off my computer. Do I need to buy a name server as well?