How-To setup a primary/secondary name server with Plesk

[eWebtricity]

I've uploaded the tutorial for setting up a primary/secondary nameserver with step by step instructions and screenshots.

http://1and1faq.com/tutorials/plesk-nameserver-setup.doc

[snowboarder04]

I tried reading this article but it's a broken link, I get a 404 :(
Any chance of someone editing to fix it?
Thanks!

[eWebtricity]

Link fixed, it was fallout from our migration from phpBB to vBulletin. Sorry for the inconvenience.

[TTL]

I read your tutorial and basically I hope got the jist of it all. One thing I am unclear over though is WHY define a master and slave for the purposes of DNS? Specifically this bit confuses me:
Setup a secondary name server if you have one by simply “registering” a second name server with a different name. This requires that you have two separate servers that can share zone file information between them, one as a master and the other as a slave.
My confusion probably lies in my perception that you are advocating two separate servers. What are the problems with master/slave on the same server?

[aachen]

Hi,

you HAVE to have 2 Nameservers in different Networks as backup if one Server or Network fails.

Regards

[eWebtricity]

TTL: In regards to your question of one server or two. It would be technically difficult to run both a master and a slave zone on the same box for the same domain. The main point is that you have redundancy preferably at a minimum two servers that are geographically diverse on different networks, with redundant power, and BGP multi-homed upstream Internet connections.

But really the whole point is redundancy and how far you want to take it. We don't rely on our Plesk servers for DNS fault tolerance or redundancy. We offload that responsibility to our registrar which gives us an added layer of redundancy. We feel our registrar is a good choice since they are in the business of DNS and they have a pretty robust DNS mgmt platform. They also have multiple nameservers on diverse networks that meets our needs of redundancy on many levels.