Serving Your Site with External Domain Name Servers

If you host a Web site on this server and have a standalone DNS server acting as a primary (master) name server for your site, you may want to set up your control panel's DNS server to function as a secondary (slave) name server.

To make the control panel's DNS server act as a secondary name server:

  1. Go to Home > Web Site group title menu > DNS Settings.
  2. Click Switch DNS Service Mode.
  3. Click Add Record, specify the IP address of the primary (master) DNS server, and click OK.

To make the control panel's DNS server act as a primary for a zone:

  1. Go to Home > Web Site group title menu > DNS Settings.
  2. Click Switch DNS Service Mode. The original resource records for the zone will be restored.

If you host a web site on this server and rely entirely on other machines to perform the Domain Name Service for your site (there are two external name servers - a primary and a secondary), switch off the control panel's DNS service for each site served by external name servers.

To switch off the control panel's DNS service for a site served by an external name server:

  1. Go to Home > Web Site group title menu > DNS Settings.
  2. Click Switch Off the DNS Service. Turning the DNS service off for the zone will refresh the screen, so that only a list of name servers remains.

    Note: The listed name server records have no effect on the system. They are only presented on the screen as clickable links to give you a chance to validate the configuration of the zone maintained on the external authoritative name servers.

To validate the configuration of a zone maintained on authoritative name servers:

  1. Go to Home > Web Site group title menu > DNS Settings.
  2. Add the entries pointing to the appropriate name servers that are authoritative for the zone to the list of DNS records: click Add Record, specify a name server, and click OK. Repeat this for each name server you would like to test.
  3. The records will appear in the list.
  4. Click on the records that you have just created. Parallels Plesk Panel will retrieve the zone file from a remote name server and check the resource records to make sure that domain's resources are properly resolved.

    The results will be interpreted and displayed on the screen.