DynDNS and Zimbra

[afterwego]

Dreamhost is who I registerd jzeller.com with.

I do have the ability to create A records as well as MX records. I see what your saying too. So what should my A name be pointing to?

This is what I got when running that command from the server itself

; <<>> DiG 9.3.2 <<>> jzeller.com any
;; global options: printcmd
;; Got answer:
;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 2140
;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 2, AUTHORITY: 13, ADDITIONAL: 13

;; QUESTION SECTION:
;jzeller.com. IN ANY

;; ANSWER SECTION:
jzeller.com. 8154 IN A 208.97.150.48
jzeller.com. 8164 IN MX 10 jzserve.dyndns.org.

;; AUTHORITY SECTION:
. 341616 IN NS J.ROOT-SERVERS.NET.
. 341616 IN NS K.ROOT-SERVERS.NET.
. 341616 IN NS L.ROOT-SERVERS.NET.
. 341616 IN NS M.ROOT-SERVERS.NET.
. 341616 IN NS A.ROOT-SERVERS.NET.
. 341616 IN NS B.ROOT-SERVERS.NET.
. 341616 IN NS C.ROOT-SERVERS.NET.
. 341616 IN NS D.ROOT-SERVERS.NET.
. 341616 IN NS E.ROOT-SERVERS.NET.
. 341616 IN NS F.ROOT-SERVERS.NET.
. 341616 IN NS G.ROOT-SERVERS.NET.
. 341616 IN NS H.ROOT-SERVERS.NET.
. 341616 IN NS I.ROOT-SERVERS.NET.

;; ADDITIONAL SECTION:
J.ROOT-SERVERS.NET. 594345 IN A 192.58.128.30
K.ROOT-SERVERS.NET. 594345 IN A 193.0.14.129
L.ROOT-SERVERS.NET. 536870 IN A 198.32.64.12
M.ROOT-SERVERS.NET. 536870 IN A 202.12.27.33
A.ROOT-SERVERS.NET. 594345 IN A 198.41.0.4
B.ROOT-SERVERS.NET. 536870 IN A 192.228.79.201
C.ROOT-SERVERS.NET. 536870 IN A 192.33.4.12
D.ROOT-SERVERS.NET. 536870 IN A 128.8.10.90
E.ROOT-SERVERS.NET. 536870 IN A 192.203.230.10
F.ROOT-SERVERS.NET. 594345 IN A 192.5.5.241
G.ROOT-SERVERS.NET. 536870 IN A 192.112.36.4
H.ROOT-SERVERS.NET. 536870 IN A 128.63.2.53
I.ROOT-SERVERS.NET. 536870 IN A 192.36.148.17

;; Query time: 16 msec
;; SERVER: 192.168.1.110#53(192.168.1.110)
;; WHEN: Sat Mar 31 02:36:10 2007
;; MSG SIZE rcvd: 498

I see both an A name record and an MX record not sure if I did the command right but I believe I did.

[phoenix]

Here's a KB article that a dreamhost user has resurrected from google cache, this tells you about changing the DNS servers.

[afterwego]

So the A name needs to be pointing at my main external IP, which I am guess cannot be done with Dreamhost since I have a dynamic address. Therefore, I will need to forward my domain to DynDNS's name servers in order to be able to setup the A name so that it works dynamically.

Meaning I won't be able to use DynDNS's free dynamic host service for this purpose.

I just want to make sure I am understanding this all correctly before I go and do it.

The domain is actually registered through GoDaddy, which I totally forgot about. So I changed the nameservers in my Dreamhost Control Panel when really I should have changed them in my GoDaddy Configuration I believe. Just something that has occured to me.

[phoenix]

Yes, you need to point them to your external IP address. I don't believe that you can do what you need on the dynDNS free service - they do have a paid service for that feature. I use a DNS service from www.easydns.com - they're moderately priced, excellent customer support and a very easy control panel to set-up your DNS plus they have the facility to point to a dynamic IP. I have no affiliation to easydns other than as a happy user.

You'll still need the internal DNS server because you're behind a NAT router.

[dijichi2]

Ignore your external DNS issues, you need to get internal DNS working, that is the key.

'dig mail.jzeller.com' is the correct command to run. you need to get a correct response to this question before you can proceed, it should return an A record with the IP address 192.168.1.110. Put the record in your internal DNS - in your jzeller.com zone should be something like 'mail IN A 192.168.1.110', if you're using BIND.

from your dig responses, you seem to be confused about split-DNS. split-horizon (split-brain in M$ parlance) DNS means that on your internal network, you 'fake' responses for domains you are authoritative for with internal addresses. currently, you have set your internal DNS server to respond with external addresses, which defeats the point of having the internal DNS server, and you have a single @ A record.

change the internal jzeller.com zone to have the following:

mail IN A 192.168.1.110
IN MX 10 mail.jzeller.com.

this should be all you need.

'dig mail.jzeller.com' should return 192.168.1.110
'dig mx jzeller.com' should return 10 mail.jzeller.com.

[afterwego]

To be on the safe side here is my zone file.

; Addresses and other host information.
;
@ IN SOA mail.jzeller.com.
hostmaster.mail.jzeller.com. (
10118 ; Serial
43200 ; Refresh
3600 ; Retry
3600000 ; Expire
2592000 ) ; Minimum
; Define the nameservers and the mail servers
IN NS 192.168.1.110 ; local ip
IN A 192.168.1.110 ; local ip
mail IN A 192.168.1.110
IN MX 10 mail.jzeller.com. ;MXrecord

My Hosts file

127.0.0.1 localhost.localdomain localhost
192.168.1.110 mail.jzeller.com mail

# The following lines are desirable for IPv6 capable hosts
::1 ip6-localhost ip6-loopback
fe00::0 ip6-localnet
ff00::0 ip6-mcastprefix
ff02::1 ip6-allnodes
ff02::2 ip6-allrouters
ff02::3 ip6-allhosts

The external DNS seems to be working now. I have made some changes and added A and MX records, so hopefully that side of this is corrected.

[dijichi2]

this (internal) dns looks good now.

[afterwego]

dig mail.jzeller.com is still returning some goofy things not sure why.

; <<>> DiG 9.3.2 <<>> mail.jzeller.com
;; global options: printcmd
;; Got answer:
;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 50738
;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 1, AUTHORITY: 13, ADDITIONAL: 13

;; QUESTION SECTION:
;mail.jzeller.com. IN A

;; ANSWER SECTION:
mail.jzeller.com. 3097 IN A 66.41.217.148

;; AUTHORITY SECTION:
. 301791 IN NS k.root-servers.net.
. 301791 IN NS l.root-servers.net.
. 301791 IN NS m.root-servers.net.
. 301791 IN NS a.root-servers.net.
. 301791 IN NS b.root-servers.net.
. 301791 IN NS c.root-servers.net.
. 301791 IN NS d.root-servers.net.
. 301791 IN NS e.root-servers.net.
. 301791 IN NS f.root-servers.net.
. 301791 IN NS g.root-servers.net.
. 301791 IN NS h.root-servers.net.
. 301791 IN NS i.root-servers.net.
. 301791 IN NS j.root-servers.net.

;; ADDITIONAL SECTION:
k.root-servers.net. 587733 IN A 193.0.14.129
l.root-servers.net. 587733 IN A 198.32.64.12
m.root-servers.net. 587733 IN A 202.12.27.33
a.root-servers.net. 587733 IN A 198.41.0.4
b.root-servers.net. 587733 IN A 192.228.79.201
c.root-servers.net. 587733 IN A 192.33.4.12
d.root-servers.net. 587733 IN A 128.8.10.90
e.root-servers.net. 587733 IN A 192.203.230.10
f.root-servers.net. 587733 IN A 192.5.5.241
g.root-servers.net. 587733 IN A 192.112.36.4
h.root-servers.net. 587733 IN A 128.63.2.53
i.root-servers.net. 587733 IN A 192.36.148.17
j.root-servers.net. 587733 IN A 192.58.128.30

;; Query time: 5 msec
;; SERVER: 192.168.1.110#53(192.168.1.110)
;; WHEN: Sat Mar 31 13:15:08 2007
;; MSG SIZE rcvd: 469

I don't know what all that root-server.net stuff is all about.

Also would my Zimbra hostname be 'mail.jzeller.com' or just 'jzeller.com'

Here is what happened when I set it up with mail.jzeller.com

Create Domain: [mail.jzeller.com]


DNS ERROR resolving MX for mail.jzeller.com
It is suggested that the domain name have an MX record configured in DNS

[dijichi2]

what is exact dig command you're giving? looks like your returning glue because you're invoking recursion and it's going outside to get the external records. turn recursion off, to start with, on your internal dns server. refresh your zones, or restart your dns server and *make sure you increment the SOA id each zone change*, to make sure your zone changes have been picked up.

you have to get your internal dns server returning your internal IP for mail.jzeller.com before proceeding further.

also i think you're getting confused between hostname and domainname. hostname is your fqdn, ie 'mail.jzeller.com'. domainname is the zone (this is simplification, before anyone starts getting pedantic , ie 'jzeller.com'. your mx record should be tied to the domainname, not the hostname, so in the zimbra installer you give the Domain 'jzeller.com', not 'mail.jzeller.com' - then it should be able to look up the MX record more correctly.

[afterwego]

I am giving the command 'dig jzeller.com any' and ' dig mail.jzeller.com'

To be honest this is my first time messing with bind and setting up an internal DNS server, so im not exactly sure where I would turn off recursion or increment the SOA ID

I'll post a few config files I have changed.

/etc/bind/named.conf.options

options {
directory "/var/cache/bind";

// from bind 9:
// [fetch-glue] is obsolete. In BIND 8, fetch-glue yes caused the
// server to attempt to fetch glue resource records it didn't have
// when constructing the additional data section of a response.
// This is now considered a bad idea and BIND 9 never does it.

fetch-glue no;

// If there is a firewall between you and nameservers you want
// to talk to, you might need to uncomment the query-source
// directive below. Previous versions of BIND always asked
// questions using port 53, but BIND 8.1 and later use an unprivileged
// port by default.

// query-source address * port 53;

// If your ISP provided one or more IP addresses for stable
// nameservers, you probably want to use them as forwarders.
// Uncomment the following block, and insert the addresses replacing
// the all-0's placeholder.

forwarders {
68.87.77.130; 68.87.72.130;
};
};

/etc/bind/named.conf.local

//
// Add local zone definitions here.
// We are the master server for mail.jzeller.com
zone "mail.jzeller.com" {
type master;
file "db.mail.jzeller.com";
};

/var/cache/bind/db.mail.jzeller.com

;
; Addresses and other host information.
;
@ IN SOA mail.jzeller.com.
hostmaster.mail.jzeller.com. (
10118 ; Serial
43200 ; Refresh
3600 ; Retry
3600000 ; Expire
2592000 ) ; Minimum
; Define the nameservers and the mail servers
IN NS 192.168.1.110 ; local ip
IN A 192.168.1.110 ; local ip
mail IN A 192.168.1.110
IN MX 10 mail.jzeller.com. ;MXrecord

These are the files that the guide I used for setup told me to change. I see a glue option in the named.conf.options, however it is set to no. When I have made changes i just run /etc/init.d/bind restart to restart the DNS server.

I understand what you are saying though it does make sense. Im just not always to sure of what I am doing. I know I have said it before, but thanks for your patience and helping me out with this!