Re: [cobalt-users] Real World Qube 2 and such

[Mike Vanecek <nospam99@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Wed, 24 May 2000 12:20:18 -0400, Hector Cabarcas
<hector@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

:>Mike,
:>
:>Perhaps you can answer the following...
:>
:>Currently our website is being hosted at a major provider. We own the domain
:>name. Our access to the internet is via Time Warner's Road Runner. It's a
:>cable modem account and seems to provide good bandwidth. If I were to
:>attempt hosting it internally via the Qube2, who assigns us the IP address?

One must have a name server to set up the necessary DNS records. The name
server url and ip address is then registered with whomever leased (Network
Solutions, eNic, etc.) you your domain name. Most require that the name
servers be located on 2 different servers.

One typically goes through an ISP to get access to the internet using xDSL,
cable modem, T1, modem, or whatever. Access to the internet backbone is not
necessarily related to where one might host their domain.

One option might be to host the primary name server on the Qube2 and the
secondary one on another server that supports DNS. With this option you have
to know enough about DNS zone records (A, CNAME, MX, PTR, SOA, etc.) to get
things set up correctly. Depending on bandwidth and traffic, hosting your own
DNS information could use some of your bandwidth. Also, if the Qube2 went
down, you really want to insure that sites and e-mail are delayed rather than
being told you do not exist.

Another option, and one the one I picked, was to purchase those services from
someone else (it does not necessarily need to be your ISP, although that was
the route I picked). Essentially, I pay $100/year for my ISP to maintain my
DNS zone records on two of their name servers. I think Jeff Lasman on this
list may also offer such services?

:>Time Warner is telling me it would cost me $479 per month to assign me a
:>static IP address - which is out of the question. Their IP addresses are
:>dynamically generated. Can I host the site internally while still having a
:>dynamically generated IP address?

You can have the server run just fine using an internal network. As a matter
of fact, most will set it up with the generic ip addresses of 192.168.1.x etc.
on the primary interface. However, if you want sites on the internet to find
your www.domain.com, then they are going to need to have an ip address
provided by a name server. That ip address is what is assigned to your
secondary interface. I guess one could funky around with a dynamically
assigned ip address and host their own DNS server, but that would probably
guarantee a bunch of problems. If you do not want outsiders to find your
server, then why have a server (for web, email, ftp, telnet, or whatever
functions)? Just set up a standard file server on a box of your choice.

HTH, Mike.




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