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[dataless]

I'm assuming setting up vanity names is allowed?

Can I tell my registrar that the IP's map to say;

216.218.130.2 -> ns1.mydomain.ext
216.218.131.2 -> ns2.mydomain.ext
216.218.132.2 -> ns3.mydomain.ext
216.66.1.2 -> ns4.mydomain.ext
216.66.80.18 -> ns5.mydomain.ext

Yes, I know a reverse lookup shows the owner but it's nice to have your domain name listed as the nameservers on all your domains.

In the process of changing things around and trying to decide on setting up 3 new servers or just outsourcing to HE for DNS hosting for a dozen or so domains.  Just wanted to make sure those IP's are not going to change any time soon or anything.

[snarked]

Yes, you have to tell your registrar because name server names in your own zone require glue records.

However, you shouldn't do this when it's someone else's servers.  Your glue records will override the lookup path should the addresses of the servers change, thus causing your domain's zone to become unreachable when all of them change (because the glue records will force resolution at the old addresses since they are not updated except by manual intervention).

[dataless]

Hey Snarked, thanks for the reply.

Yeah, I understand the process but good info post for anyone who does not.

My question was more to the "Are the current IP's set in stone".  I understand the HE free dns is considered beta and I was curious if anyone knows if the current IP's are considered temp or perm.  Obviously things can change down the road for unforeseen reasons, I was wondering if HE plans on keeping them the same or knows that they will most likely change down the road.

More of a "Does HE support vanity DNS setups", not so much an "Is it possible" which is the way I wrote it up.  Sorry about that.

And really by support it, I mean "If the IP's change will we get some advanced notice so we can update glue records?"

The main software I use for web hosting in VM's is a CentOS based system called BlueOnyx, it's a fork from the old Sun Microsystems RAQ OS BlueQuartz.  Due to limitations in the system it doesn't directly support IPv6 through it's interface.  While I don't use the IPv6 much it would be nice to have an easier setup than manually changing BIND files and possibly having BlueOnyx over-write the changes down the road.

[snarked]

I don't consider any IP address as "set in stone."  Where possible, I use hostnames exclusively in all configurations, even my firewall rules.  The only place where I can't use hostnames is in configuring BIND itself (DNS software), and I choose not to use it in my local interface and routing table configs (because BIND isn't running yet when I do that).

BIND doesn't like coming up when there are no interfaces.  Although I could bring it up before interface initialization, I'd have to execute an "rndc reconfig" command after (primary) initialization.

[kcochran]

As noted: no IP is set in stone.  Even one of the root nameservers is renumbering in the next few weeks.  That said, the nameserver IPs haven't changed in some time.  Odds of them changing any time soon, pretty low.

[dataless]

As noted: no IP is set in stone.  Even one of the root nameservers is renumbering in the next few weeks.  That said, the nameserver IPs haven't changed in some time.  Odds of them changing any time soon, pretty low.

That's what I was looking for, thanks Kcochran. 

No plans to change them anytime soon.  As I mentioned, I know unforeseen things can come up later down the road obviously. 

I'm betting if I setup say ns1 through ns3's IP's to ns1.mydomain.ext and ns4 & ns5 IP's as my ns2.mydomain.ext that even if something changes one or two of them down the road I'll have time to update them before I'm without any DNS.

I'd likely use at least 2 of my servers in the mix as well.  I just hate to solely rely on VM's to handle DNS, if the ESXi servers crash or lag that could mean total DNS failure.

I've got several people on Google Apps for email for example, so I have outside services tied to my DNS.  Not in an environment where I can spread out to more of a cloud based setup for redundancy right now.  So it's just a small hand full of stand alone ESXi servers with local storage.  Using the HE DNS for backup would be a nice bonus, was looking in to signing up for either Cloudns or Dnsmadeeasy or something until I found you guys had a setup running.

I'm assuming it will go premium at some point, but at least I know I can trust HE to keep services running.