Re: [cobalt-users] IP Address and Web Servers

[Kris Dahl <krislists@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

on 4/24/00 12:07 PM, July at Zerowait at july@xxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:

> I am very new to the web server world and the Raq2 is my first actual
> web server. Basically, we need to make www.jollyco.com appear on the
> internet, be able to serve mail, and get FTP. Can mail.jollyco.com,
> ftp.jollyco.com, and www.jollyco.com have the same IP? What are the
> ramifications of same or different IPs?  What about the IP of the
> physical box itself? Should it be the same or different? I am going to
> be using non-published IP's on a 192.168.1.X network behind a firewall
> for the Raq2 and the web server (s).

Not only is it okay to have all of them pointing to one IP, but its
recommended.  It would be a waste to use seperate IPS on all the machines.

Actually, you should be able to use a single IP for the entire machine
(including all your virtual hosts).

> Second, we are presently having the DNS hosted by an ISP. Can I have him
> point to a DNS on the RAQ2 or is that overkill? Should he just point to
> the domain? How does that work?

It doesn't hurt to have a secondary DNS server.  I would suggest setting it
up with InterNIC so that your upstream provider appears to be the primary
name server.  In actuality, you should set it up so that you are the primary
and they are the secondary, and you just send updates to their server.  That
was you are able to control the content of the DNS records, but don't take
the brunt of the traffice relating to DNS.  This is a common arangement ISPs
make with their clients.

> Sorry for the low-level questions. I just don't know what to do and I
> can't get Cobalt on the phone for anything. I'm thinking about returning
> the thing.

You gotta learn somewhere.  I would suggest picking up a copy of the book
DNS/Bind by O'Reily and Associates.  Very good.

-k