How to setup a domain with DNS,
IP Address and web host
Copyright 2004 Mufad P
Introduction and scope
Almost everyone who knows about the internet knows what
a domain name is. It is what identifies a unique website or email server.
When you send an email to someone@domain.com, the domain.com
forms the domain name. When you type in http://domain.com in
the address bar of your browser, the domain.com is the domain name of
the website you are going to see.
But how does the computer know which page to show when there are almost
infinite number of domain names possible? How does it know where to
fetch the webpage from ? This article answers these question and explains
what you need to do to register and setup your domain and tell all the
computers in the world that yourdomain.com should show your web page.
How to choose a domain name ?
There are many top level domains (TLDs) the most popular are the .com,
.net and .org – Countries have their own like .us, .in, .ca, .au
etc and then there is the new breed of domains like .tv, .info, .ws
and so on but the most powerful king of all is the .com Why ? Because
it came first ?
In the domain market, single word domains sell for thousands of dollars
and .com costs around 10 times more than the others and is as difficult
to get a new name. There is a myth that domains with hypnens (dashes)
are
better for search engine rankings, I think there may be some truth in
that myth, but domains without dashes always seem to cost more than
the ones with dashes. The best way to register a domain is to determine
the keywords you are going to target by using the free trial of keyword
popularity and competition analysis from wordtracker.com and get a domain
with those keywords in it. Another school of thought abandons this approach
and advocates brand name domains like yahoo.com instead of everything-portal.com,
google.com instead of the-only-search-engine.com and ebay.com instead
of online-junk-acutions.com - you get the picture.
Name Servers Explained
Every computer connected to the internet has an ip address that looks
like 123.234.123.234. An ip address consists of 4 numbers separated
by dots, each number ranging from 1 to 255. What this numbers mean is
not important for us, all we need to understand is that each computer
on the internet has a unique ip address and if the
GoldenRobot wants to talk to R2D2 on the internet, it has to know the
IP address of R2D2 (name borrowed from the movie Star Wars).
But Wait a minute, does that mean that there are only 256*256*256*256
number of computers that can connect to the internet? Technically yes.
But that number is large enough for now until they start connecting
every microwave and freezer to the internet (imagine your freezer automatically
placing an order for 2 liters of milk to the grocery store
when it detects that your milk stock is diminishing!) OK, now you must
be thinking all the ip address stuff is fine, but how does it relate
to domain names? Remember that I said "if the GoldenRobot wants
to talk to R2D2, it has to know the IP address of R2D2 " - but
all you give to your computer is the Domain Name of the website you
want to visit, so how can it get the ip address? Enter the NameServer.
The job of a nameserver is to resolve a domain name to an ip address.
Simple.
A nameserver is similar to a telephone directory except that instead
of mapping person names to phone numbers, it maps domain names to ip
addresses. Imagine having just one telephone directory for all the people
in the world ! In the same way, if they had just one
nameserver for all domains, it would be unmanageably huge and all the
computers would have to contact that one nameserver to get the domains
resolved to ip addresses !
Even a super-duper-mega-monster-computer would not be able to handle
such a load !
So we have many nameservers. When you register a domain, you specify
which name server to use.
Now lets take our example GoldenRobot wants to talk to R2D2 It will
have to follow these steps
1> Look at the registrar entry for R2D2 to determine which nameserver
to use
2> Connect to that nameserver and ask it for the ip address of R2D2
3> Connect to R2D2 using this IP address
In reality it is a bit more complicated due to nameserver cacheing,
and chained recursive lookups leading to authoritative and non authoritative
responses, but our example illustrates the basic concept and is sufficient
knowledge to setup your domain.
One misconception that I would like to clarify, some people think that
each domain name maps to a unique ip address, not true. Just as many
people in a house can share a single
telephone number, many domain names can share a single ip address. The
NameServer will return the same ip address for all of these domains
and when the browser connects to that ip address, it says I am trying
to reach suchandsuch.com domain, the webserver then returns the correct
page for the domain requested. Obtaining a unique ip address (known
as dedicated ip) for your website is usually more expensive than sharing
the ip address.
How to setup your domain name.
Form the discussion we just had, you would be able to appreciate that
in order for you to get your domain to point to your webpage, you need
to do the following in theory
1> Obtain the ip address for the web host where your WebPages reside
- this is the webserver ip
2> Make an entry (Called as DNS Entry) in a Nameserver to resolve
your domain name to this ip address.
3> Configure your domain to use this nameserver
Most of the time, step 2 will be transparent to you as most webservers
provide nameservers in which they make the DNS entry for you when you
purchase webspace from them. Also, many good domain registrars provide
their own nameservers that you can use.
While registering a domain or after registering a domain, you will need
to set it up to use two or more nameservers. It is common to use multiple
nameservers so that if one of
them is down the others may be used.
You have three options to set the nameservers
• 1> nameserver provided by your web host Your webhost will
usually have their own nameservers. In their documentation they may
say you need to use something like ns1.yourwebhost.com and ns2.yourwebhost.com
- If you use these, you need not bother about the webserver ip address
or any other settings, just configure your domain to use these and you
are all set.
• 2> nameserver provided by the registrar that you register
your domain with.
If you use this option, you will need to know the ip address of your
webserver (provided by your webhost). As you will be using the nameserver
provided by your registrar, you will need to set it up to point to the
correct ip address for your website by creating a DNS
entry. The ip address for your webserver is called as the A record and
the ip address for your mail server is called as the MX record, CNAME
records are used if one domain needs
to be similar to another domain, but you do not need to understand these
options for a basic setup. Many top notch domain registrars in the industry
provide advanced DNS
management like forwarding your domain to another site, subdomains,
email id management, wildcard dns etc
• 3> third party nameservers
This is an option that very advanced domain managers prefer when they
wish to have more features and greater control over their DNS records
which may not be provided by the
registrar or the webhost. Now a days, the line between the web hosts
and the domain
registrars is fading as most domain registrars are providing web hosting
and most web hosts are providing domain registration. If you purchase
your domain registration and web hosting from the same company, chances
are that you may never need to do any setup at all.
What to look for in a registrar
It is always a good idea to register your domain with a domain registration
site rather than with your webhost so you can be able to shift your
webhost in case you need to
without loosing your domain.
A good domain registrar should provide you the following features;
• No Cost Domain Forwarding - To Point your domain to anywhere
you choose, you can even use a long free web host url and forward your
domain to it.
• No Cost for Change of Registrant - Makes sure you can change
registrars (transfer out to another registrar) for your domain without
paying a heavy fee.
• No Cost Domain Parking - You get one page saying your site is
under construction or something like that.
• Domain Name Locking - makes sure that no one can initiate a transfer
request until you unlock your domain
• DNS Server Changes - You should be able to login to your own
control panel and make any changes yourself. I use http://value-name.com
for all my domain needs, they provide 1 year registration for $8.75
and $7.75 for a domain transfer including one year extension. They alsohave
special prizing for bulk registrations.
Trouble Shooting Domain Name Problems
What can you do if you have trouble setting up your domain? First of
all, remember that it may take up to 48 hours for your domain changes
to propagate across the internet.
If you wish to verify the settings on any domain, you can use our recommended
whois tool at http://biz-whiz.com/PostWrap-page-nstool.html The whois
report on any domain will tell you about the current nameservers attached
to that domain in addition to the contact addresses, the registration
date, expiry date and the date when the last modifications were made
to that domain record. If the nameservers are not correct then you know
you have to change them by logging into your domain name control panel
or by contacting your registrar support.
If the name servers that are shown are correct, then you can use the
nslookup tool (Advanced DNS Lookup) from the same page to determine
the ip address being returned for your domain by any nameserver. Here
you should enter one of the nameserver that you find in the whois output
and see what ip address it returns for your domain name.
If it does not return an ip address then the nameserver has to be configured
to point your domain to the correct ip address, or you may be using
the wrong nameserver.
If it returns an ip address, You can try typing the ip address directly
into the address bar of your web browser, if it gives a 404 page not
found error, then either the ip address is wrong or the webserver is
down. If it returns some generic page but not your webpage, that is
all right, this is to be expected unless you are using a dedicated ip
address. Make sure that the IP address returned is the correct one that
your web host is providing to you.
If you are sure that the ip address is correct and still your website
does not show when you type in your domain name in the address bar of
your browser, then it may be that other people are able to access your
site and only you are not able to access it because your local nameserver
does not resolve your domain or resolves it wrongly. In that case,
if you can find out the nameserver your local machine is using, you
can enter that nameserver in the nslookup tool at http://biz-whiz.com/article219.html
and see what ip
address it is returning. If your local nameserver is returning the wrong
ip address all you need to do is wait till the dns changes propagate
to your local nameserver, If your local nameserver is returning the
right ip address, then you must contact your web host to inform them
that their webserver is not configured to support your domain.
Conclusion
We have covered a lot of ground here, from registering a domain to setting
and trouble shooting it. Even if you never need to configure a domain,
reading this article gives you an understanding of what goes on behind
the scenes when you type a domain name in your browser. For the advanced
domain manager, we reviewed domain configuration options and tips on
troubleshooting.
Mufad.
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About the Author:
Mufad has put together
an easy to use system for building and managing your website.
You can try out the powerful features of a template driven, cms
based, search engine
friendly website design at http://powersitesystem.com
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