On Sun, 12 Jun 2005 10:55:37 -0400, "mohamad2181"
<(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
>Good Day All,
>
>I am trying to setup an ftp server at home so I can make some files
>available over the internet. I am using VSFTP with redhat 8.0 and it works
>fine as long I use the IP of my server at home provided by ISP. Here is the
>trick, instead of using
>ftp://192.168.1.1/docs I want to be able to use something like
>ftp://training.linuxathome.com.
>
>I don't have a lot of networking background, so please bare with me and
>hopefully by answering these I'll have better Idea where to start.
>
>1) Do I need to setup DNS ?
>2) If I do, that means I need to have domain name hosted by my ISP, correct?
>3) I heard that some companies offer free DNS hosting, if that is correct,
>who are these companies?
>4) what is the best way to approach this?
>
>Your help is greatly appreciated.
>Thank you
>
Domain Name Howto
These are the steps that you need to follow in order set up your
domain name:
*
Purchase a domain name from a registrar.
*
Find a DNS name server to be authoritive for your domain.
*
Configure your name server's DNS records for your domain.
*
Let your registrar know who is the authorative name server for
the domain.
Getting A Domain Name
Getting a domain name is relatively straight forward, you find a
domain name registrar, chose a name that's not already registered, and
pay the fee. All of this can be done via the registrar's website.
Registration is for a fixed period of time, the minimum time being one
year. A list of accredited registrars can be found at ICAAN. There are
quite a few bargain registrars where the price is under US $10 per
name per year, so shop around before you buy. Make sure that you chose
a registrar that will allow you to configure your account online (more
about that later).
The .com, .net and .org domain names are freely available for
registration by anyone. But virtually any name that's in the
dictionary will have already been taken, either by someone who
actually uses it, or by someone whose speculating that they can sell
it to someone else at a profit. Names made from groups of words are
more likely to be available. There's no way that you'll get hotel.com,
but you could well find that you can get TheBrisbaneHotel.com. You
have to be a bit creative. The registrar's web site will be able to
tell you if the domain you want is available.
The registrars for country specific domains (such as mydomain.com.au,
au for Australia ) may be more restrictive. They may require that your
domain name is the same as your company or organisation name, and the
registrar may not allow these names to be sold to a third party. You
are also less likely to find a bargain rate.
Your Domain Needs An Authoritive Name Server
Once you've got a domain name, you have to make it point to your host
site. That is to say, you have to make the name resolve to the ip
address of your host site. This is where the Domain Name System (DNS)
comes in.
Computers on the internet find each other using ip addresses, people
find computers on the internet using their domain names. The Domain
Name System maps domain names to ip addresses. DNS is based on a
globally distributed network of name servers. A query to a DNS name
server will yield the ip address of the submitted domain. The name
server is said to resolve the name to an ip address. Your domain needs
a DNS name server that's authoritive for it.
When your web browser (or email client or whatever) tries to contact
another computer on the internet, it asks the closest name server for
the ip address for that computer's domain name. This name server will
'ask around' other name servers and will find the name server that is
authoritive for the domain. The authoritive name server will relay the
ip address back to the requesting application.
You have to designate a specific DNS name server to be the authoritive
server for your domain name. You can use your ISP's name server, but
you'll most likely have to pay for the service. Your domain name
registrar may also provide this service, possibly for a fee. But there
are free DNS name servers if you look around, Google 'free DNS'. You
also have the option of hosting your own authoritive name server, but
unless you're a large organisation with a fixed ip address and
multiple servers, it won't be worth the trouble. A good, free DNS
service can be found at
www.zoneedit.com.
DNS Records
When you've found someone to provide a DNS service for you, create an
online account with them and add your domain name to it. Now you have
to configure your name server with information about your domain. This
is done mainly with the 'A' record and 'MX' record.
The 'A' record lists the ip addresses for your domain. Each ip address
will have one or more names associated with it, either the domain name
itself, and/or associated subdomain names.
If you have a mail server its name must be in the 'A' record and thus
have an ip address associated with it. This name will also have to be
entered in the 'MX' record, designating it as the mail server.
Your domain can have as many subdomains as you like. Each subdomain
has it's own entry in the 'A' record, its own ip address. The ip
addresses can be different, or the domain and subdomains can share the
same address. Two common subdomains are 'www' and 'mail'. The 'www'
subdomain often shares the same address as the domain, and you'll find
that you can usually use either 'www.mydomain.com' or 'mydomain.com'
in your web browser. The 'mail.mydomain.com' is often the entry found
in the 'MX' record.
Telling The World
At this point you have a domain name and a DNS name server that will
resolve that name to an ip address. But now you have to let the other
name servers on the internet know where to find this authoritive name
server for your domain. This is where you go back to your registrar
and tell them where the name servers for your domain are. Notice that
I've said name servers, plural. You need a second name server to act
as a backup in case the first one goes down or is unreachable. But
normally the DNS service that you use will provide you with both a
primary and secondary name server. At the beginning of this howto I
suggested that you use a registrar that allows you to configure your
account online. This is where you configure your account so your
domain name has an entry for both the primary and secondary name
servers. Enter these in the appropriate place and that's it, except
that now there's a bit of a delay. It will take somewhere between 24
to 72 hours before this information propogates to other name servers
on the internet. Don't expect name resolution for your domain to work
reliably before this time.
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