Re: [cobalt-users] name server trouble #2

[Jeff Lasman <jblists@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Florian Effenberger wrote:

> I am a little bit confused about the nameserver. I have a Cobalt RaQ3
> with all patches installed (including the OS Update #3 and the All
> Kernel 1.1 Update). The only package I have installed additionally is
> the POP-before-Relay 1.2 package.
> 
> I want my site, http://www.uhoo.de, to be reachable by the following
> ways:
> 
> 1. http://www.uhoo.de and http://uhoo.de is for the virtual site
> 'www.uhoo.de'.
> 
> 2. uhoo.de should also be accessible by FTP, POP3, SMTP, IMAP4, ...
> services.

What you need is a site with hostname "www" and domain name "uhoo.de". 
Accept mail for domain and Website for domain should both be checked.

FTP should be turned on.

> 3. The subdomain http://webhosting.uhoo.de should be an independent
> site with independent web and e-mail accounts (e.g.
> support@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx is different from support@xxxxxxx).

Set up another site, with "webhosting" as the hostname and "uhoo.de" as
the domain name.  Accept mail and Website should both NOT be checked. 
If either is checked you won't be allowed to create the domain.

For the email addresses you'll have to create alternate addresses, for
example:  create for this site an account called supportw (actually
usernames can be more than eight characters, but I prefer to limit them
to eight, since only eight will show up in a directory listing;
otherwise directory listings can be confusing).  Give it an alias of
"support".  If the so-created address isn't forwarded elsewhere, the
user will have to log into it as supportw and not as support.  But it
will get mail sent to "support@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx".

> 4. ns1.uhoo.de and ns2.uhoo.de are on the same machine and act as name
> servers. I have an IP address an another network for the ns2.
> 
> 5. ns1.uhoo.de and ns2.uhoo.de should not be accessible via e-mail,
> FTP, HTTP, POP3, IMAP4, SMTP.

This is a bit harder.  The way the RaQ (and virtually all linux systems)
operate, the IP#s are strictly aliases to the same box.  Once the
service request gets to the box, it gets handled.

So anyone with an account on your RaQ can use any name the RaQ is known
by for FTP.  You can control HTTP a bit; by default
/etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf IS set up to understand virtual domain
hosting.  Usually requests will go to the right site, although as you
mentioned in your previous email, the right site isn't always obvious.

For example, if you'd type "http://ns1.uhoo.de/"; into your browser,
you'd get the first site (in the order they're listed in
/etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf) hosted at the IP# you use for the RaQ; if
you don't host any sites on that IP#, you'll get the site hosted at the
main IP# for the RaQ (the one in /home/sites/home/web).  So if you
really don't want users who type that in, you need to create a site with
hostname "ns1" and domain "uhoo.de", and create an error page in it's
web-space.

If you don't have any users set up for these sites, or if these sites
don't exist, mail for them will most likely be rejected, presuming
you've got the latest OS Update 3 (if you're using a RaQ3.

> ...<stuff snipped>...

> So far, it seems to be ok. However, ns1.uhoo.de and ns2.uhoo.de are
> accessible via HTTP (I don't want that). server1.uhoo.de (server name)
> is not, exactly as I wanted it. On some sites (e.g.
> webhosting.uhoo.de) I had to turn of web and e-mail access because
> otherwise the server didn't let me create the virtual site.
> And it seems that the setting web and e-mail access is generally
> ignored (e.g. on ns1)?!

I think I've explained that above.  If you've still got unanswered
questions, feel free to write again.  I may be misunderstanding you, or
you may be misunderstanding me.  Or either one of us may be
misunderstanding how the RaQ is reacting or is supposed to react.

> I also had to enter webhosting.uhoo.de as host/domain alias in the
> email server configuration through the GUI.
> 
> Is all that normal? What can I do to achieve the things I wanted (see
> beginning of the e-mail)? :-)

See my responses above.

> Sorry if the information is very ugly, but I am a complete newbie in
> name server and I hope that you can help me. If you need anything else
> (e.g. a diagnostic file), please let me know.

Not much of this has anything to do with your nameserver, but rather
with how linux/unix works.  (Of course if you had Linux running on a
mainframe, you could set up each IP# on a virtual machine and avoid most
of these problems <wry grin>.)

Jeff
-- 
Jeff Lasman <jblists@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
nobaloney.net
P. O. Box 52672
Riverside, CA  92517
voice: (909) 787-8589  *  fax: (909) 782-0205