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claws
Asked: 2010-03-19 00:00:20 +0800 CST

few basic questions on webhosting (namservers & dns records)

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I bought a domain name on example.com & I want to use free webhosting on 110mb.com

By default name.com integrates services of Google apps. Name server entries are 

ns1.example.com 
ns2.example.com 
ns3.example.com 
ns4.example.com

When I registered on 110mb.com it gave me two addresses

ns1.110mb.com 
ns2.110mb.com

This is where I'm lost. The concept is that "Domain name should point to an address of the server where the website is hosted" right? Then

  1. Why are these 4 entires by default. How exactly is it working?
  2. Should I remove these 4 and then add 110mb.com servers or just append 110mb.com server addresses to name.com ones.

I would like to use google apps. If I change these name server addresses would that remove google apps? I especially want to use email service of google. And I really don't understand what is CNAME, MX, or something something. I want to learn about these stuff & how it exactly works.

When I search for webhost tutorial. I'm unable to find any fruitful results.

domain-name-system web-hosting nameserver

4 Answers

  1. OK, let me take a crack at this.

    You registered a domain via name.com - they apparently run 4 DNS servers, as listed in the first part of your question. Since you didn't mention what it is, we'll assume you registered newbie.com

    Now, name.com has a template for newly registered domains, so that it points to some google services. If you want to use google apps for email, you need to set up an account there, tied to your domain - basically, when you set up a google apps account, you're telling google that it's going to start handling certain services for you.

    One of those services in mail. That mean at a minimum you need an MX record. You'll set that up at name.com, telling it that google will be handling your email. When you set up your google apps account, they'll give you the details on what to put into your DNS records. The end result will be that when someone wants to send email to anyone at newbie.com, they'll query the name.com DNS servers, and they'll tell them to go deliver the email to google.

    Now, to use web hosting at another free service, you need to set up the DNS records so that www.newbie.com (and perhaps just newbie.com) resolve to a machine at 110mb.com - again, you'll set up the DNS servers at name.com so that whenever someone asks for www.newbie.com, the name.com DNS servers will basically say "that's me, over there this IP address" - an IP address which happens to be configured by 110mg.com to respond to requests to www.newbie.com

    Clear as mud, right?

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  2. Unless you want to preserve some Google Apps functionality, you want to completely replace the nameservers with the ones your web host provided you.

    Your web server has a certain IP address on the Internet, let's say 12.3.45.67. That web server also wants to be addressed by a domain name, say, example.com.

    However, for anybody else in the world to know that example.com is supposed to point to 12.3.45.67, they need to ask the "authoritative" name servers for example.com. In your case, these are ns1.110mb.com and ns2.110mb.com. If you ask those name servers where example.com is, they will correctly tell you that it is 12.3.45.67.

    If you have example.com on Google Apps, Google's name servers are going to claim that example.com should resolve to Google's web servers. This is not correct, since you want to be using 110mb's web servers. That's why you have to remove Google's name servers from your domain: That way, visitors will be told to use 110mb's name servers, which correctly point example.com to 12.3.45.67.

    DNS is extremely complicated despite how simple it seems; my explanation is probably very confusing. Google's Basic Guide to DNS is a relatively straightforward glossary but could take a few readings and some experimenting before really grasping how everything fits together. How Stuff Works has their own guide to How Domain Name Servers Work; I've found HSW's tutorials to be easier to understand than most.

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  3. DNS servers and web servers are two completely different things. It is not at all safe to assume that the authoritative nameserver for any given domain is going to have the same address as the server(s) responsible for delivering web content. Larger sites will in fact have several of each running all at the same time in completely different physical locations.

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  4. You should change the name server entries to the ones you received from 110mb.com, since these are the name servers which know where your actual web site is.

    I'm afraid I don't know if changing the name servers will remove your access to Google Apps or not, perhaps ask the support at name.com?

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