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Private Name Servers for hosting resellers

3

Hello, I’m a new hosting reseller, so I’m confused about:

Is it good to use my own domain as a private name servers instead of the hosting provider?

If yes

Is it better to use my business domain name as a private name servers or create a specific domain for this purpose? 

What is the pros & cons?

Sun, 22 May 2022 3:58:02
  • mikejcarton
    • Flash Drive

    Hi :)

    I have been reselling hosting for several years. My suggestion would be to have your own domain just for name servers.

    Primary domain and main website – example.com
    Private nameservers – example.host or example.net

    Having your business/brand name set as private nameservers is beneficial. When you tell your customer they need to change their nameservers to yours, it will show your business not someone elses.

    I would also recommend having your main website away from the reseller accounts. This way, if your servers go down for whatever reason, your customers could still contact you through the main website.

  • Rupok
    • Ex Staff

    Hi Mohammad,

    There is not much technical difference between the hosting nameservers and private nameservers. The most benefits are in terms of branding.

    However, I believe others will share more details regarding this from their personal reseller business experience and that will help.

    Regards,
    Rupok

  • Tony G
    • Mr. LetsFixTheWorld

    I’m using my own name servers: “moo” and “oink”. If I get a third it might be quack, cluck, or squeek. Names don’t matter any more than your local wifi network name, which for reference, mine are Battlestar Galactica (5GHz) and USS Enterprise (2.4GHz), and my phone broadcasts the name “Get off my wifi”. Really, no one cares. Does anyone here actually measure the professionalism of a provider by their name server names? MAYBE email server names, but only if you’re evaluating whether a provider is using stable services … and that’s what our friends here are talking about.

    I recommend against hosting your own DNS until you decide that’s really a necessity. It’s a burden that you don’t need when you just want to provide site management … like managing email servers, which we do here too. There’s very little that you can’t do with hosted DNS (maybe wildcards?). Unless you perceive real Value for DIY, then it’s probably not worth it, for a long time or ever.

    When you get hosting services there’s always a GUI, maybe cPanel or similar, for DNS management. Many providers also support an API, so you may be able to script your more complex needs, default zones, auto generation of SPF, DKIM, etc. … again, no need to DIY or code to protocols. The NS names are almost always ns1.theirname.tld and ns2.theirname.tld. Some have 3, 4, or more secondary NS’s. With simple, arguably “professional” naming like that, obviously not as cool as moo n oink, is taking the next step for branding really providing compelling bonus Value?

    You could use any big company to provide DNS for you. The DNS is completely unrelated to hosting services, though many companies bind these together as an inseparable package. (Anyone see what I did there? Ah, I crack myself up.) Just be sure that your two or more servers are all on different physical servers and in different IP subnets.

    You can also combine the big name of a DNS provider with your own DIY-managed services, using what’s called a “glue” record. Look it up if desired, some providers don’t support it.

    If you have very special needs for your own branded Name Server (a Linux server with BIND, Fail2Ban blocking of bad actors, API, and other features, ping me via my About.me page from my WPMU DEV Profile. We don’t do this kind of business, but I’d be VERY curious what needs someone would have for that, and I’d be tickled to set it up and support it. We even have a nice dashboard. :)

    HTH

  • Andre van der Merwe
    • WiredAfrican

    Thanks Tony G – great reply.

    Can’t speak for the others but for me, it would just be nice not to show the client where we are actually hosting their services. :grinning:

    When I Googled today this popped up. https://ns1.com/plans
    Looks like you can get a free account with up to 50,000 queries per month, but I honestly don’t know enough about DNS management to give any sort of educated comment about it.
    50K queries might be too little?
    Perhaps Tony G can?

    • Tony G
      • Mr. LetsFixTheWorld

      Interesting subtopics here.

      Threads for thought:
      https://serverfault.com/questions/268223/how-many-sites-can-be-served-with-50-000-dns-queries?rq=1
      https://serverfault.com/questions/346358/what-is-causing-all-these-dns-queries?rq=1

      From what I’m reading, a starting point to determine DNS hit count is to get your total number of page hits, including bots. Assume every hit is non-cached. Include mail traffic, both inbound and outbound, depending on if you use mail.yourbrand.tld. Double or quadrupal the number because every site is hit with pings, port scans, and tons of abuse. You’re just looking for a rough estimate for how often some bot or person will need to translate your (client) domain name to an IP address. Compare that number to the 50k/month tier and others.

      It occurs to me that there might be a model for a business that does nothing but serve as a temporary DNS so that a site owner can get solid numbers about their requirements. Limit the service to some number of months and facilitate transfers to/from the service. Maybe do this all for fee based on average traffic so that larger sites pay their share for resources. I’ll think about it.

      As to not showing a client where their services are hosted: Anyone who is sophisticated enough to care about such things can easily do a DNS lookup, WHO IS, Trace, or some other trivial and free operation that only takes a few seconds. And anyone who knows how to do that knows it doesn’t matter.

      For existing and potential clients who may actually know or care about such things, ask up front and openly, rather than wondering if someone will figure it out. This will show you are attentive to such things. Post a Forminator survey on your website and invite submissions. If you do find people care, ask them what their concerns are. If someone really cares about premium/fast DNS access to resources, offer them an alternative as an addon to your services – they will pay for the DNS that they want, which is a service offering that they won’t get anywhere else. Heck, in this scenario you don’t need to brand with Your name, give the client their own DNS branding. Tell them how to do it, and if they want you to manage the process, that’s another small fee for service.

      Heck, you could even offer a service to setup dedicated DNS for a client, primary and one to six secondary servers in data centers around the world. If the client will pay for it, just ensure you have a profit model and make it an optional line item. You could offer this in your standard offering just to show you understand the concerns and I pretty much guarantee no one will buy it. If they do, let’s do some business.

      The bottom line on all of this is that you can really get whatever scenario you wish. I would strongly encourage you to ensure that your perception of Value for the expense is in line with your client/prospect perceptions. If you really decide to do this, don’t feel this needs to be a non-reimbursible expense. Look at it more like a service, a for-profit line item like extended backups, special network handling, multi-datacenter support, or anything else that requires you to do something special.

      HTH