Using Icelandic domain (restricted DNS)

[LeonardChallis]

Hi there, firstly my apologies if my question is vague. DNS is not my strong area - so if there is a name for this type of DNS setup that I can go ahead and read more about then do please share those links.

I have an Icelandic domain registered (let's call it domain.is). The ISNIC only let you use their trusted DNS providers. The one I chose, because it's free, is X.is. They give you four nameservers: a.x.is, b.x.is, c.x.is and d.x.is. Doing a lookup on my domain I get this:

domain.is	IN	NS	a.x.is	86400s	(1d)
domain.is	IN	NS	d.x.is	86400s	(1d)
domain.is	IN	NS	c.x.is	86400s	(1d)
domain.is	IN	NS	b.x.is	86400s	(1d)
domain.is	IN	MX	
preference:	10
exchange:	mx1.x.is
86400s	(1d)
domain.is	IN	MX	
preference:	20
exchange:	mx2.x.is
86400s	(1d)
domain.is	IN	SOA	
server:	a.x.is
email:	hostmaster@x.is
serial:	2013081512
refresh:	10800
retry:	3600
expire:	604800
minimum ttl:	1800
86400s	(1d)
domain.is	IN	A	178.18.125.121	86400s	(1d)

Usually, from my normal registrar, I can just point my domain to the VPS nameserver (such as nameserver1.vpsproviderdns.com and nameserver2.vpsproviderdns.com), and all the various subdomains will work (i.e. mail.domain.com, ftp.domain.com, etc). In this case, however, domain.is and www.domain.is work, but I cannot connect to other subdomains like mail.

I'm unsure how to move forward - can anyone make any suggestions?

Thanks!

 

[LeonardChallis]

Hi all, a quick update and hopefully a better question. I contacted my VPS provider who were very helpful. They gave me the following information:

I have raised your enquiry on this with our engineers - it appears that the issue may be related to 2nd requirement on the list you have provided:

https://www.isnic.is/en/host/req.php

"Nameserver must be consistently registered in DNS, i.e. its own A resource record must be available and a corresponding PTR resource record as well."

To resolve this, it would be necessary to assign 2 additional IP addresses to your VPS via your account control panel - then create PTR records for each IP address, for example pointing to:

ns1.yourdomain.is
ns2.yourdomain.is

You would then need to create matching A records for these host names under the DNS settings for the domain within Plesk - you should then be able to assign the nameservers to the .is domain - you would also need to supply the relevant IP addresses when setting the nameservers so that the glue records are created.

I have assigned the two new IP addresses to my server, that's no problem. I think I can do the last part - creating the A records (presumably in the DNS settings for the domain.is subscription) - but I'm a bit stuck as to where I have to create the PTR records. Is this in Plesk, or elsewhere? Any more clues to help me get a bit closer would be fantastic.

Thanks again, and again apologies for my lack of knowledge in this area!

 

[LeonardChallis]

further progress...

More information follows. On my registrar's control panel it let me set the PTR records for the IP, so I changes the two IPs I allocated to ns0.domain.is and ns1.domain.is respectively. I then added A records in Plesk pointing to those ns0. and ns1. addresses with those IP addresses. Then, in the ISNIC control panel I registered the name servers and it ran a test on each and said they were registered successfully. But when I went to change the name servers of the domain to my newly setup name servers it game me the following errors:

Test results for "NS0.DOMAIN.IS":
The nameserver ns1.vps123.vpsprovider.com is not consistently registered in DNS (ns1.vps123.vpsprovider.com => 1123.123.123.123 => vps123.vpsprovider.com)
The nameserver ns0.vps123.vpsprovider.com is not consistently registered in DNS (ns0.vps123.vpsprovider.com => 1123.123.123.123 => vps123.vpsprovider.com)
The nameserver ns0.DOMAIN.IS is missing from the NS record set for DOMAIN.IS
Test results for "NS1.DOMAIN.IS":
The nameserver ns1.DOMAIN.IS is missing from the NS record set for DOMAIN.IS
The nameserver ns0.DOMAIN.IS is missing from the NS record set for DOMAIN.IS

I feel like I'm close but maybe missing off a vital last step of linking the name servers up correctly? Can anyone suggest anything?

Thanks again.