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Hosting at home

zebbedi
Grafter
Posts: 91
Registered: ‎26-07-2008

Hosting at home

Im hosting my own site at home including nameservers etc. Ive been thinking about transfering the domain into plus.net so i can get them to change my rDNS.
Reading the following topic however states that to host at home you can simply create an A record (www) to point to your home machine. However surely this means that if someone visits http://domain.com instead of http://www.domain.com they will still get the plus.net hosted site? Is this correct?
http://usertools.plus.net/tutorials/id/14

Is there not a way to transfer the domain to plus.net but point the nameservers to my own machine and manage the DNS zone myself?
8 REPLIES 8
Ben_Brown
Grafter
Posts: 2,839
Registered: ‎13-06-2007

Re: Hosting at home

Unfortunately our Domain Control System doesn't allow you to have a domain hosted by us but without using our nameservers.
Also, I wouldn't recommend running any public nameservers on the end of a DSL line.
zebbedi
Grafter
Posts: 91
Registered: ‎26-07-2008

Re: Hosting at home

Fair enough i spose. Plus.net offered to setup my rDNS to be one of my domains. I figured id move the domain to plus.net for completeness but im guessing they dont need to be in charge of the domain to change my rDNS? They did say i would need to maintain the A record but im not entirely sure which A record they mean.
why do you not recommend housing own nameservers. the sites are really low traffic and have been fine this way for 3 odd years now.
itsme
Grafter
Posts: 5,924
Thanks: 3
Registered: ‎07-04-2007

Re: Hosting at home

You have to have an A record the same as the rDNS.
zebbedi
Grafter
Posts: 91
Registered: ‎26-07-2008

Re: Hosting at home

So if the domain is example.com
then there must be an A record to point to example.com? 
itsme
Grafter
Posts: 5,924
Thanks: 3
Registered: ‎07-04-2007

Re: Hosting at home

Yes
in my case I have an rDNS of mail.domain.co.uk so I have to have an A record for mail.domain.co.uk.
seanbranagh
Grafter
Posts: 1,236
Registered: ‎02-08-2007

Re: Hosting at home

Best way is to keep your domain where it is and just edit or add the A records for yourdomain.com and www.yourdomain.com and point them to your Plus Net static IP.
That way your site will be on your home server but you can use the existing server to handle DNS and mail as this is not recomended on an ADSL line.
That method has worked for me for years. The domain is hosted by Eukhost, dns and mail handled by my VPS with them but the site (as addressed below) is hosted here in my attic.
You will generally have no control over thje rDNS as it is controlled by whoever is doing your DNS, in my case Eukhost. What the rDNS resolves to is not important so long as it resolves to something. If it does not email from your domain will be rejected by some mail servers including AOL.
itsme
Grafter
Posts: 5,924
Thanks: 3
Registered: ‎07-04-2007

Re: Hosting at home

Believe you will find that the rDNS is controlled by the ISP who own the IP address and not by the DNS hosting company.
seanbranagh
Grafter
Posts: 1,236
Registered: ‎02-08-2007

Re: Hosting at home

Yes, I didn't word that right. In my case it was Eukhost both the IP owner and the hosting provider that I had to contact to get rDNS records added to the IP's for my VPS. This was after trawling the mail log on the server to find out why my users were complaining about not being able to send mail to some mail accounts.
If you were running a mail server at home on your Plus Net line this would not be a problem. Their IP's (as far as I can see) all have rDns records usually resolving to something like username.plus.com