Kyle Cronin's questions

I'm looking to set up my first DNS server, after having used registrar or web host provided DNS for years. It's going smoothly for the most part, but I'm having a bit of trouble understanding how to link it up to by registrar.

My setup is thus: I have configured the hostname on my server to be ns1.example.com. BIND is running on this server with a zone for example.com and records for ns1.example.com (resolving to its own public IP) as well as record for several other *.example.com subdomains.

I now want to make this server the authoritative DNS server for example.com. I had thought, perhaps naively, that I would be able to provide the IP address for this server to my registrar, and that they'd be able to set up an NS record for example.com. This appears to not be the case - based on some research, it appears I need an actual hostname for my NS servers.

I can't provide ns1.example.com, because it's a catch-22: in order to know which server ns1.example.com is, you need to look it up with ns1.example.com.

What is the solution to this? I can use my registrar-provided DNS for example.com, and then establish an A record for ns1.example.com, but I think that would mean I'd have to move all my other subdomain DNS records for example.com to my registrar's DNS. I'd be able to use the server as authoritative DNS for other domains, just not example.com. Is this correct?

I'm new to running my own DNS server, so I'm hoping there's an option to deal with this issue that I'm unaware of.

According to the Amazon EC2 FAQ, when an instance is terminated the data is gone. What steps can I take to preserve data in the event my instance is rebooted? I've been looking into EBS and S3 - would either of these be useful to store an active database? How often are instances rebooted anyways?

I've installed Wubi onto a Windows Vista computer. I've also set the boot timeout to 0:

bcdedit /timeout 0

However, now I can't figure out how to get the menu to come up at all! I read on the internets that I had to hold F8 or space when starting up, but they doesn't seem to do anything. Is there a different key or setting I've overlooked?

The computer itself is a Dell that's a few months old. The keyboard is USB, but I don't think that's the problem as I can get into the BIOS just fine. Maybe I'm doing it wrong? Am I supposed to hold the keys or rapidly tap them (I've tried both)?

If it helps, here's the output from bcdedit:

C:\Windows\system32>bcdedit

Windows Boot Manager
--------------------
identifier              {bootmgr}
device                  partition=C:
description             Windows Boot Manager
locale                  en-US
inherit                 {globalsettings}
default                 {current}
resumeobject            {5460d9d2-d391-11dc-9d9f-aba67a8797c5}
displayorder            {current}
                        {e2484fe7-5e97-11de-84d4-0024e8074422}
toolsdisplayorder       {memdiag}
timeout                 0
resume                  No

Windows Boot Loader
-------------------
identifier              {current}
device                  partition=C:
path                    \Windows\system32\winload.exe
description             Windows Vista
locale                  en-US
inherit                 {bootloadersettings}
recoverysequence        {572bcd55-ffa7-11d9-aae0-0007e994107d}
recoveryenabled         Yes
osdevice                partition=C:
systemroot              \Windows
resumeobject            {5460d9d2-d391-11dc-9d9f-aba67a8797c5}
nx                      OptIn

Real-mode Boot Sector
---------------------
identifier              {e2484fe7-5e97-11de-84d4-0024e8074422}
device                  partition=C:
path                    \ubuntu\winboot\wubildr.mbr
description             Ubuntu

I have a situation where I need to have PuTTY (or another SSH client for Windows) automatically log into another machine via SSH. I realize that this isn't a good idea security-wise, but unfortunately I'm constrained by the limitations both on the client and the server.

The best solution would be to have a shortcut or script on the desktop that, when double clicked, will connect to the server and automatically log in. Can I do this with PuTTY?

I am willing to explore public key authentication, but I'm not sure where the PuTTY key resides or how to copy it to the server, as the app starts automatically upon login.