Are you worried about making mistakes in DNS edits of websites?

Fortunately, control panels like DirectAdmin come with an easy-to-use interface for managing DNS records.

However, improper settings like the wrong IP for domains, bad DNS records, etc. leads to errors on the website.

At Bobcares, we often get requests for DirectAdmin DNS management as part of our Server Management Services.

Today, let’s get into the details and see how our Support Engineers do DNS edits in DirectAdmin and fix related errors.

How we manage DNS in DirectAdmin

DirectAdmin serves as a simple control panel to add and manage domains. It really makes domain management easy.

Here, we’ll see how our Support Engineers manage DNS in DirectAdmin.

1. Initially, we log into the DirectAdmin control panel.

2. Then, we click the DNS Management button under Your Account section.

3. From the interface, we can see a zone file of the domain.  Here we have different options to set up in the DNS of each domain.

1. Add Domain Records:- To add any record.
2. Modify MX records:- To modify the MX record.
3. Add Another MX record:- To add another MX record.

In addition, to delete any record, we click the Delete Selected button after selecting the record.

Thus, every DNS option can be easily done from the control panel itself.

How we fix common DNS errors

At Bobcares, where we have more than a decade of expertise in managing servers, we see many customers face problems while managing DNS in DirectAdmin.

Now let’s see the major reasons for DNS errors and how our Support Engineers fix the top errors.

1. Misconfiguration in named.db file

Recently, one of our customers had a problem with his DNS set up in DirectAdmin. Whenever he opened a domain DNS management, he got an empty table.

On checking our Support Engineers found that a misconfiguration in domain.com.db file. The settings in the named.db file and domain.com.db file are different. It may depend on how the zone files are called.

In this case, the scope of the zone defined in the named.conf file was creating conflicts. Therefore, we had to set the configuration in named.conf file as:

domain.com.db
Code:
domain.com. IN SOA |NS1| |EMAIL| (

Here, the @ sign refers either to the domain name as defined by the most recent preceding $ORIGIN setting in the file.

2. Bad firewall, or named.conf settings

Similarly, many customers often find problems with their websites after setting up the DNS record in DirectAdmin. One such error is Named is running, but it’s not responding to requests.

In general, this error may occur due to either a firewall or a named.conf setting.

Some codes in the named.conf file prevents named from listening requests.  For example,

allow-query { localhost; };

This code indicates that named only offers responses to local IPs. Therefore, we make sure that this line is not listed in named.conf file.

In addition, the code such as,

listen-on port 53 { 127.0.0.1; };
listen-on-v6 port 53 { ::1; };

This code also instructs to named for listening on these IPs.

Sometimes, the firewall also cases DNS errors. It may block port 53 from listening requests. So, our Support Engineers make sure that the port is open in the firewall to accept the request.

[Need assistance to manage DNS records in DirectAdmin? We’ll help you.]

Conclusion

In short, improper DirectAdmin DNS management leads to errors on the website. It occurs when a misconfiguration occurs in named.db file or due to the bad firewall, or named.conf settings. Today, we saw the various reasons for DNS errors and how our Support Engineers fix them.