Sync DNS with cPanel Server

i am setting up two servers, one with cPanel and one with interworx
(would do all I-Worx, but unfortunately some people wont leave cpanel :frowning: )

so heres my question:
both server will be running local DNS for the accounts they host
is there any way to get the records from the cpanel server to be synced with the DNS records from the I-Worx server and visa-versa?

the idea is to have my name servers as follows
ns1.host.com --> I-Worx Server
ns2.host.com --> cPanel Server

this would make sure all records are on bother servers for redundancy etcā€¦

or am i better of setting it up as described, with no syncing, and just allowing NS1 to resolve the i-Worx accounts and letting NS2 resolve the cPanel accounts

You canā€™t cross-sync DNS info so youā€™re better off having each server do its own thing Talkingreef.

Chris

thanks chrisā€¦

so then i should askā€¦
if i haev multiple servers some I-Worx, some cpanel, whats the best way to get all of there info together. i really dont want to have individual NS for each box ya knowā€¦

i guess im just curious what solutions are out there for people in my situation, i know there has to be something, since hosting providers do this on a daily basis

here is a better layout of the situation

ok, so let me throw out a situation, as im looking for options to resolve a similir one.

situation:
im a reseller, i have 4 VPS servers, 3 Interworx, 1 cPanel
there DNS does not talk/sync with each other.
cPanel used BIND, interworx uses djbdns

i want to provide ALL my customers with only 2 nameserver
ns1.company.com
ns2.company.com
without manually updating DNS records everytime a customer adds a domain, subdomain, or multi hosted domain.

is there a solution out there to accomplish this goal? as i cant seem to find the answer.

Third party DNS management?

Bind and djbdns use completely different ways if storing DNS the data, so as Chris sid they canā€™t be synced.

so how to hosts that offer all different types of servers, including cPanel and interworx offer only 2 name servers to there customers.

if you know a third party service tthat will do something like this, let me know so i can check them out.

it just boggles me that this is this difficultā€¦ :frowning:

There are two ways that I am aware of:

  1. Third party (or at least separate server run by you) DNS managment where all DNS is controled through a single server but points to the IPā€™s on different servers. The neg on this is that you have to manually make DNS changes on the main box

  2. Each box has itā€™s own nameservers

ns1 and ns2 for one box
ns3 and ns4 for another

etc

Neither is ideal, but then in an ideal world everyone would be using InterWorx :wink:

ok, how about this ideaā€¦ i knwo you are not cPanel experts (well at elast not officially) so you dont have to comment on those specifcs

but lets say i get to 4 Interworx and 3 cpanel.

i set all the I-Worx server to sync together (pretty sure this is possible)
i set all the cPanel servers to sync together (pretty sure this is possible)

then ns1 to poitn to one of the i-worx boxes and ns2 to point to one of the cpanel boxes, think that will work?

You could do something along the lines of this post:

http://www.interworx.com/forums/showthread.php?t=319&highlight=dns-sync

Which will query and ā€œpullā€ the DNS from several IWorx boxes to a separate DNS server created and hosted by you (djbdns). It seems that you could create a similar script/sync that would query and pull all the DNS records from your other boxes to a central source as well (whether using bind, or whatever).

JB

How DNS works is that you have to specify to nameservers per domain for redundancy. It the resolver (your ISPā€™s dns server) fails to connect to NS1 for some reason or it takes two long it contacts NS2 which in this case wouldnā€™t have the data on NS2 so you would get errors quite often.

Your best bet is probably to try to do what JB suggested.

ok, so my best option woudl be to sunc the DNS on all my I-Worx servers using the method in from that link. if i understand it, i can do this with just 2, 3, or more I-Worx server and it should ā€œrequireā€ a additional server just for DNS.
then i can provide all my I-Worx customers with ns1 and ns2

then i can just use the DNS clustering on cPanel and provide all cPanel customers with ns3 and ns4.

am i accurate here?

Iā€™m unfamiliar with how the DNS clustering on cPanel works, canā€™t speak much to that process.

As for DJBDNS (and therefore IWorx), you can use the instructions from the dns-sync link to pull the records from any other 1+ DJBDNS servers (up to however many you wish to handle) to your new/external DJBDNS server. That singular external DJBDNS conglomerate server created by you could be the ā€œns2ā€ for all of your IWorx customers (assuming it had one public IP, ā€œns1ā€ could remain their original IWorx box).

Itā€™s also nice that the above mentioned sync also allows for a section of static dns entries for your own manual DNS pleasure, should you wish (that wonā€™t get overwritten by the auto-dns-sync process).

Iā€™m currently using this method and can vouch that it works with zero future intervention once itā€™s setup and running.

JB

There should be some sort of lite version of InterWorx just for setting up a slave nameserver on an external machine or a VDS. That would be cool ;/

Creating a special version of Iworx for dns management only would be kind of overkill, I think.

You can just set up a box with djbdns on it and set the other boxes to sync with it, but this would only work with iworx or other boxes using djbdns.

http://www.interworx.com/forums/showthread.php?t=319&highlight=sync+dns

Are you suggesting some sort of web interface for this? If so Iā€™d take a look for a freeware/shareware web interface for DJBDNS for the dns box created in the above how to. A DNS syncing interface will be comoming out of Beta in the next release.

Hi All,

Apologies for reviving a dead post but I am just about to start my web hosting company but now that cPanel has thrown a spanner in the works with their licensing, I am going to want to have the same setup as Talkingreef did all those years ago and still 13 years on there is still no answer to this anywhere on the internet except for a small section on i-Worx page here, https://www.interworx.com/support/faq/troubleshooting-how-to/sync-iworx-dns-non-iworx-dns-server/

Has anyone tried the above and got it working properly?, basically, I want to be able to host customers on Interworx and cPanel and only have two DNS servers two serve up requests regardless of hosting panel.

Hi NameHound

Welcome to IW forums

Yes, there are users of IW running AXFR and I tested myself as well. The issue if not working for you, maybe is at the other end, where you allow incoming zone transfers perhaps.

You can run those commands yourself and test as per the IW link you posted, to confirm that zones are been given.

Many thanks

John

Thanks very much, Iā€™m sure youā€™ll be hearing from me every now and again as Iā€™m just about to stand up my first IW server and cPanel server. I havenā€™t tried to do this yet and just wanted to see if I was wasting my time, I would be easy to have cPanel DNS only in place for my cPanel server to sync to and if the previous link I posted works for transferring zones from IW to DNSonly then that would work out well.

Otherwise I would have to look down the path of just running to BIND9 servers and syncing everything with them and also asking for suggestions about other peoples setups with multiple branded control panels pointing to a main pair of DNS servers.

One question about using AXFR to sync to another DNS server, once this is in place, does it automatically transfer zones if they are added or modified to the specified server or do you have to setup a cron job for this to happen?

Hi namehound

You would need to create a cron job for zone transfers

Personally, I do not see any need for zone transfers to other dns servers. You could have the free 1 domain dns IW licence and create as many dns servers as you need. It is just a case of making sure the correct records point to correct systems

However that said, I do understand what your trying to achieve and IW users have used zone transfers to other dns servers

I hope it goes well for you

Many thanks

John