# Website setup (networking related) [solved]

## vaguy02

Currently I'm attempting to set up a website using a domain I just purchased. The server is a virtual instance of gentoo and is through a different company than the domain registration.

Server is online, I'm able to connect to the server using the externally facing IP address via SSH no problem there. 

I'm experiencing the following issues:

1.)When I attempt to ping the domain, I get "could not find host". I've checked the domain registration people and I've pointed the domain to the external facing DNS servers of the server company. On the server companies DNS, I've created a A and CNAME record for the domain to the IP address. 

2.)When starting apache2, I get an error about "could not reliably determine the server fully qualified domain name".

3.)Don't really know if this is a problem or not, but whenever I boot the virtual server it stays zeus.unknown_domain for the computer name at the login screen. 

/etc/conf.d/net

 *Quote:*   

> 
> 
> config_eth0=(
> 
>         "208.111.35.233 netmask 255.255.255.128 broadcast 208.111.35.255"
> ...

 

/etc/hosts

 *Quote:*   

> 
> 
> 127.0.0.1 localhost localhost.localdomain
> 
> 208.111.35.233   zeus.togethermakesone.com
> ...

 

/etc/conf.d/hostname

 *Quote:*   

> 
> 
> HOSTNAME="zeus"
> 
> 

 

/etc/conf.d/domainname

 *Quote:*   

> 
> 
> DNSDOMAIN="togethermakesone.com"
> 
> 

 

I posted everything I could think of to help. If you need other config files, let me know.

Thanks,

Rob

P.S. - I think they are all kinda related that's why I put it all in one post.

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## jtaylor72

Here's where to start.  The results from a DNS Report at dnsstuff.com produced the following errors:

------------------------

ERROR: You have one or more lame nameservers. These are nameservers that do NOT answer authoritatively for your domain. This is bad; for example, these nameservers may never get updated. The following nameservers are lame:

209.177.144.177

209.160.42.172

------------------------

ERROR: One or more of the nameservers listed at the parent servers are not listed as NS records at your nameservers. The problem NS records are:

ns1.vrdns.com.

ns2.vrdns.net.

--------------------------

Your DNS servers leak stealth information in non-NS requests:

Stealth nameservers are leaked [d.gtld-servers.net.]!

Stealth nameservers are leaked [e.gtld-servers.net.]!

Stealth nameservers are leaked [f.gtld-servers.net.]!

Stealth nameservers are leaked [g.gtld-servers.net.]!

Stealth nameservers are leaked [h.gtld-servers.net.]!

Stealth nameservers are leaked [i.gtld-servers.net.]!

Stealth nameservers are leaked [j.gtld-servers.net.]!

Stealth nameservers are leaked [k.gtld-servers.net.]!

Stealth nameservers are leaked [l.gtld-servers.net.]!

Stealth nameservers are leaked [m.gtld-servers.net.]!

Stealth nameservers are leaked [a.gtld-servers.net.]!

Stealth nameservers are leaked [b.gtld-servers.net.]!

Stealth nameservers are leaked [c.gtld-servers.net.]!

This can cause some serious problems (especially if there is a TTL discrepancy). If you must have stealth NS records (NS records listed at the authoritative DNS servers, but not the parent DNS servers), you should make sure that your DNS server does not leak the stealth NS records in response to other queries.

---------------------------

No valid SOA record came back:

com. is not togethermakesone.com.

It looks like your zone may not be setup properly.

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## vaguy02

Thank you very much for all the hard work investigating this. I didn't fully understand everything you said, but I got some of it. Here is how my DNS zone is set up on the server company's DNS.

 *Quote:*   

> 
> 
> SOA       togethermakesone.com  ns1.hostvirtual.com support@HOSTVIRTUAL.COM 1   
> 
> NS         togethermakesone.com  ns1.hostvirtual.com   
> ...

 

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## jtaylor72

when I do a whois on your domain, it says the nameservers for it are:

Domain servers in listed order:

      NS1.VRDNS.COM 

      NS2.VRDNS.NET 

Also, you have some CNAME records pointing to IPs.

I would delete the two CNAME records you have.  You could make

CNAME zeus.togethermakesone.com togethermakesone.com

since they are the same ip.

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## vaguy02

This is what I'm getting from the Support Center of that corp.

 *Quote:*   

> 
> 
> If you plan to manage your DNS via the vClient DNS management interface you should set your dns servers to:
> 
> NS1.HOSTVIRTUAL.COM
> ...

 

Updated Zone

 *Quote:*   

> 
> 
> Please set your domains DNS servers to: ns1.hostvirtual.com and ns2.hostvirtual.com in order to use this service. 
> 
> SOA  togethermakesone.com  ns1.hostvirtual.com support@HOSTVIRTUAL.COM 1   
> ...

 

Sorry, for all the hand holding, but I'm completely lost at this point. haha.

EDIT - I've changed the Domain's DNS to resolve to ns1.hostvirtual.com and ns2.hostvirtual.com

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## zyko

 *Quote:*   

> 1.)When I attempt to ping the domain, I get "could not find host". I've checked the domain registration people and I've pointed the domain to the external facing DNS servers of the server company. On the server companies DNS, I've created a A and CNAME record for the domain to the IP address.
> 
> 

 

Due to DNS-Caching it can take some time until your domain really resolves to your server's IP when you type it into your browser. I've seen it take more than 2 days in some unlucky cases. If you have net-dns/bind-tools installed, you can use dig to look up what your DNS server thinks about your domain.

```
    % dig example.com

    ; < <>> DiG 9.2.1 < <>> example.com

    ;; global options: printcmd

    ;; Got answer:

    ;; ->>HEADER< <- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 37526

    ;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 1, AUTHORITY: 2, ADDITIONAL: 1

    ;; QUESTION SECTION:

    ;example.com. IN A

    ;; ANSWER SECTION:

    example.com. 3472 IN A 192.168.5.5

    ... 
```

The ANSWER SECTION shows the TTL (time to live, time until the DNS server will update its cache). In this case, 3472. So don't expect an update 'til the TTL runs out.

 *Quote:*   

> 2.)When starting apache2, I get an error about "could not reliably determine the server fully qualified domain name".

 

Do you have the hostname set in apache's httpd.conf? It should have a line like this in it:

```
hostname example.com
```

/edit: yeah, yeah, I know the term "DNS server" is a redundancy...   :Smile: 

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## vaguy02

The servername variable is already set in the 00_default_vhost.conf but I tried setting the hostname variable as you described in httpd.conf and it threw and error saying invalid command hostname in httpd.conf

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## vaguy02

Update:

Apache is now starting and running fine. I am able to hit the IP address of the server and get the default "It works!" page. 

So all that's left is to get the actual DNS resolution working.

Thanks,

Rob

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## jtaylor72

It looks like everything is resolving, at least from opendns.  I cannot get to your server though....but maybe it's down right now or something.  Also, if you intend on having people go to www.togethermakesone.com, you'll need to add another CNAME:

CNAME www.togethermakesone.com togethermakesone.com

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## xtz

 *vaguy02 wrote:*   

> 3.)Don't really know if this is a problem or not, but whenever I boot the virtual server it stays zeus.unknown_domain for the computer name at the login screen. 
> 
> /etc/conf.d/net
> 
>  *Quote:*   
> ...

 

Add dns_domain_eth0="togethermakesone.com"

 *vaguy02 wrote:*   

> 
> 
> /etc/hosts
> 
>  *Quote:*   
> ...

 

Remove the second line and change the first one to

```
127.0.0.1 zeus.togethermakesone.com zeus localhost
```

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## vaguy02

jtaylor72, Thank you very much for your help. I verified that the DNS resolution is resolving correctly. I am able to get to my website and I've added the CNAME record you specified. The reason you couldn't get to the server is that I have it firewalled off to the rest of the world until I'm ready to release the site, I only have my desktop IP address able to get through. I really appreciate all the hard work on this one.

Rob

----------

