When adding new domain names for your clients (or simply when providing nameservers for your clients to point their existing domains to your new hosting account), providing custom nameservers is essential. Not only to stand out from the crowd but also showing your brand online.
Creating custom nameservers is a very simple process. To start, you need to first decide on your nameserver structure.
For the purpose of this guide, we will use:
ns1.example.com and
ns2.example.com
There are three steps to this process; Adding DNS A records, Associating your new custom nameservers in WHM and finally adding glue records.
Step 1 - A Records
WHM >> DNS Functions - Edit DNS Zone
A (Address) records are essential to ensuring that your new ns1 and ns2 nameservers work correctly.
The A record will map your new ns1 and ns2 addresses back to our cloud’s IP addresses. To set these, please follow the instructions below:
1. Login to your WHM control panel
2. Find the ‘DNS Functions’ section in the left side panel
3. Click Edit DNS Zone
4. Select the domain name that you want to use for your new nameservers from the list, in this example it would be example.com
5. Click Edit
6. Scroll down the page and using the empty boxes just under Add New Entries Below This Line, in the first box enter ns1 you can leave the next field set to the default of 14400
7. Select A from the drop-down list
8. Finally, enter our first name server IP - 107.6.164.251 (ns1.lenasi.cloud)
9. Once added, click Save, leaving all other settings as default.
10. Repeat steps 6-9 using ns2 and the IP of our second nameserver - 107.6.164.251 (ns2.lenasi.cloud)
Step 2 - Associating your new custom nameservers in WHM
WHM >> Server Configuration - Basic WebHost Manager Setup
To ensure that your new nameservers are set against all client accounts added to your WHM, please follow the instructions below.
1. in WHM, find the ‘Server Configuration’ section in the left side panel and click ‘Basic WebHost Manager Setup’
2. In the fields provided, enter your two new nameservers, this will look like the image below:
3. Click Save Changes to complete
Step 3 - Glue records
Lenasi Client Area >> Domains - View your domains >>select domain - Manage Domain >> Management Tools >> Register Nameservers
The final step to ensure that your new custom nameservers work for all customers is the publishing of glue records.
A glue record is a map of your new nameservers ns1 and ns2 held at the domain registry. If your domain name is held or managed by us (e.g. visible in your client area) you can add glue records yourself using the following steps.
1. Login to your Lenasi account and from your client area click ‘View your domains’
2. Find the appropriate domain in the list - if you have lots of domains you can use the filter box at the top.
3. Click ‘Manage Domain’ next to the domain you wish to add glue records for.
4. Select the ‘Management Tools’ dropdown tab and click ‘Register Nameservers’.
5. You can now add two new nameservers for your domain, ns1 using the first Lenasi name server IP and then ns2 using the second Lenasi nameserver IP.
6. If you make an error you can also Modify a nameserver IP or delete a nameserver here too.
If your domain name is managed by another provider, you will need to ask them to publish your ns1 and ns2 records for you. You will also need to advise them of the two Lenasi nameserver IP addresses used above (107.6.164.251).