4 ms·

Good work Patrick. I'd point out another, tricky source of failure: crappy dns hosting. It's worth it to buy dedicated dns hosting from two different providers.

by aristus 17y ago

Good work Patrick. I'd point out another, tricky source of failure: crappy dns hosting. It's worth it to buy dedicated dns hosting from two different providers. The cost is about 50 bucks per year.

patio11 17y ago
That is one I wouldn't have thought of. My personal experience -- and the standard disclaimer applies -- is that when I can't reach DNS it is because of a networking issue that would make the server unreachable even if I knew the correct IP address. Still, thanks, I'll pencil that onto the "thing through when not 3 AM" list.
- aristus 17y ago
  It's more of a chronic problem than a sitedown problem. You might be surprised how crappy some hosts and resolvers are. Using dual 3rd-party DNS does give you one very good advantage in acute situations, though. When your host goes down hard you can still repoint domains, receive email, etc. In general I recommend dispersing services: put your company's blog on a subdomain hosted somewhere else like Weebly, and use something like Google Apps to handle your domain's email routing.
imp 17y ago
Do you have providers that you recommend?
- aristus 17y ago
  whois archivd.com Domain servers in listed order: NS1.WORLDWIDEDNS.NET DNS0.MTGSY.COM NS2.WORLDWIDEDNS.NET DNS1.NAME-S.NET NS3.WORLDWIDEDNS.NET DNS3.MTGSY.COM The only other smallbiz-grade service I've used is DNSPark. They are decent but their management interface is painful and has not changed in 7 years (!).
  - imp 17y ago
    Cool, thanks. I've been using ZoneEdit without any problems, but I may look into those providers also.
- pquerna 17y ago
  moved to zerigo this spring: http://www.zerigo.com/ http://www.zerigo.com/ been happy with it, and they have an easy to use API so if you are doing ~cloud~ things, you can script adding DNS entries etc quite easily from most programing languages.
dennisgorelik 17y ago
I think having two DNS providers is too much of a hassle. I use dnsmadeeasy.com (which is very reliable and inexpensive) and it works very good for my web sites.
- andrewtj 17y ago
  If you think having two DNS providers is a hassle then you are probably doing it wrong — if you setup a hidden primary configuration then adding an additional secondary is just a matter of giving the new provider your zone name and IP address and then updating your delegation. In case you're not familiar with it, a hidden primary configuration is just a master setup to allow zone transfers with the zones themselves not including a delegation to the master. This means the only queries your master serves are zone transfers requested by the secondaries.
quellhorst 17y ago
I have used DnsMadeEasy.com for years without any DNS downtime. Great service and inexpensive.

by aristus 17y ago

Good work Patrick. I'd point out another, tricky source of failure: crappy dns hosting. It's worth it to buy dedicated dns hosting from two different providers. The cost is about 50 bucks per year.

patio11 17y ago

That is one I wouldn't have thought of. My personal experience -- and the standard disclaimer applies -- is that when I can't reach DNS it is because of a networking issue that would make the server unreachable even if I knew the correct IP address. Still, thanks, I'll pencil that onto the "thing through when not 3 AM" list.

aristus 17y ago
It's more of a chronic problem than a sitedown problem. You might be surprised how crappy some hosts and resolvers are. Using dual 3rd-party DNS does give you one very good advantage in acute situations, though. When your host goes down hard you can still repoint domains, receive email, etc. In general I recommend dispersing services: put your company's blog on a subdomain hosted somewhere else like Weebly, and use something like Google Apps to handle your domain's email routing.

imp 17y ago

Do you have providers that you recommend?

aristus 17y ago
whois archivd.com Domain servers in listed order: NS1.WORLDWIDEDNS.NET DNS0.MTGSY.COM NS2.WORLDWIDEDNS.NET DNS1.NAME-S.NET NS3.WORLDWIDEDNS.NET DNS3.MTGSY.COM The only other smallbiz-grade service I've used is DNSPark. They are decent but their management interface is painful and has not changed in 7 years (!).
- imp 17y ago
  Cool, thanks. I've been using ZoneEdit without any problems, but I may look into those providers also.
pquerna 17y ago
moved to zerigo this spring: http://www.zerigo.com/ http://www.zerigo.com/ been happy with it, and they have an easy to use API so if you are doing ~cloud~ things, you can script adding DNS entries etc quite easily from most programing languages.

dennisgorelik 17y ago

I think having two DNS providers is too much of a hassle. I use dnsmadeeasy.com (which is very reliable and inexpensive) and it works very good for my web sites.

andrewtj 17y ago
If you think having two DNS providers is a hassle then you are probably doing it wrong — if you setup a hidden primary configuration then adding an additional secondary is just a matter of giving the new provider your zone name and IP address and then updating your delegation. In case you're not familiar with it, a hidden primary configuration is just a master setup to allow zone transfers with the zones themselves not including a delegation to the master. This means the only queries your master serves are zone transfers requested by the secondaries.

quellhorst 17y ago

I have used DnsMadeEasy.com for years without any DNS downtime. Great service and inexpensive.