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Setting up Custom Nameservers

Last updated by Ashley Cawley on November 05, 2015 15:57

What are Custom Nameservers?

Nameserver Records often look like this:

ns1.cloudabove.com
ns2.cloudabove.com

We understand that if you are a Reseller or a Web Developer that you may prefer your own brand-name to show up there instead of ours. So if anyone ever did do a DNS lookup on the domain name it would show up as:

ns1.YourBrand.com
ns2.YourBrand.com


Deciding on a Domain Name to use as your Custom Nameservers

You first need to decide on which domain name it is that you own and would like to use as your Custom Nameservers, you will want to make sure that it is a domain name that you are confident you will want to keep for a long time because other domain names will eventually be reliant upon it as their point of reference when it comes to DNS queries.

If your Custom Nameserver disappeared then the other domain names that rely upon it would go offline.

In the rest of this article we will assume that your domain is: YourBrand.com


Setting up the Custom Nameservers

There are two basic principles to setting up Custom Nameservers:

1) DNS A Records need to be set up to point at the correct places 

2) DNS GLUE Records need to be setup at your Domain Registrar

We will cover both of those steps in more detail below.

It is important that you first establish which of our services you are using as this will effect where it is you point things, so do you have:

Virtual Private Server (VPS) or Shared Hosting - Developer Package (on our cPanel / WHM Platform)? If you are unsure which you have then just get in touch and we will be able to tell you which you have.


Virtual Private Server

DNS A Records
If you have a Virtual Private Server with us then the DNS Records that we will create will need to point at the IP address of your server, so lets say as an example your VPS IP address is 83.142.229.70 you would need to login to to your Domain Registrar (that is the company where you registered your domain name) and add two new DNS Records. Edit the DNS Records for the domain name you will be using as your Custom Nameservers and create two new DNS 'A Records' pointing at the following:

ns1 -  83.142.229.70
ns2 -  83.142.229.70

Replacing 83.142.229.70 with the real IP Address of your server.

GLUE Records

You will then need to set up two GLUE Records with the company where your domain name is registered. If your Domain Name is registered with us then get in touch and we can setup GLUE records for you. The GLUE records would be:

ns1.YourBrand.com
ns2.YourBrand.com

Obviously replacing the YourBrand.com part with your own domain name. GLUE Records are sometimes referred to as Child Nameservers by some companies. If you are having difficulty finding the right area in your Registrar's Control Panel to create GLUE Records you may need to contact the Support for that company requesting that they setup GLUE Records for you.

After the DNS A Records & GLUE Records have been put in place you may wish to change the Nameserver Records for your domain to use itself so that it is using your new Custom Nameservers, if you were previously using your Domain Registrar's Nameservers you will first want to ensure that the DNS Zone (all of your DNS Records) for your domain have already been put into place on your VPS, so this may mean that you may need to mimic the DNS Records from your Registrar onto your VPS's DNS Zone file.

After that has been done you will be safe to update the Nameserver Records for your domain to use itself for Nameservers.

Shared Hosting - Developer (on our cPanel / WHM Platform)

You will need to login to to your Domain Registrar (the company where your domain name is registered) and add two new DNS Records on your domain name that you will be using for your Custom Nameservers.

If you are using our cPanel / WHM Developer Platform then your DNS 'A Records' will need to point at the following locations:

ns1 - 82.145.47.50
ns2 - 83.142.229.148

The GLUE records would be:

ns1.YourBrand.com
ns2.YourBrand.com

Obviously replacing the YourBrand.com part with your own domain name. GLUE Records are sometimes referred to as Child Nameservers by some companies. If you are having difficulty finding the right area in your Registrar's Control Panel to create GLUE Records you may need to contact the Support for that company requesting that they setup GLUE Records for you.

Once that has been put in place we would recommend leaving it 48 hours before trying to use the Custom Nameservers in conjunction with other domain names. If you have a domain name which is none critical and you can use as a test then feel free to point the domain at your new Custom Nameservers as you may find it begins to work within just a few hours.

We understand that DNS can be confusing, so please do not struggle if you have any difficulties just get in touch and one our engineers will be happy to assist.