Who's my DNS?

[Barry Margolin]

In article <a8de8j$esh at pub3.rc.vix.com>, Max <maxdartz at hotmail.com> wrote:
>
>I have a static IP through DirecTV DSL.  They say they only allow one
>domain to be mapped to my IP.  So if I use them for my name server, I
>believe I'm limited to just one.  But I don't know why/how they can do
>this, and I want to get around that.
>
>I have 4 different domain names, which I'd like to serve through my
>home-based Linux/Apache/DSL setup.  My domain names were registered
>through companies like Catalog.com and Stargate.com.
>
>Questions:
>1.  Do I have to use my DSL provider as my name server?

No.

>2.  Can I use my name registrars as DNS if they offer it?  If so, how
>do let them know what my static-IP is?

If they offer it, yes.  How you let them know depends on the registrar; I
would expect most to have a web form.

However, I think most registrars that offer DNS service just offer domain
"parking", which points your domain to a generic "In construction" page.
When you want it to point to your own server, you may need to get DNS
service from another provider; you tell the registrar to change your
domain's nameservers to that provider's servers, and you tell the provider
your static IP.

>3.  Is there another place I should look for DNS so I can have 4
>domain names all connect to my 1 static-IP?

There are quite a few.  Last week one of them was spamming this group quite
a bit.

>3.  Stargate offers domain name forwarding, which I've tried, and I
>setup a virtual host on my Apache.  However, while it does find the
>right root directory, the URL listed in the browser is still the IP
>address, not the ServerName (www.foo.com).  Should I bother with
>domain forwarding and if so, how do I get it to display the server
>name?

There are different forwarding mechanisms that display differently.  Some
providers will do the forwarding that changes the URL for free, but charge
money for the forwarding that keeps your preferred domain name in the URL.

-- 
Barry Margolin, barmar at genuity.net
Genuity, Woburn, MA
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