Nameservers - Domaint -> web server

How can I make it so I have mydomain.com point to my Hestia installation ? I created a DNS zone and has lots of records with my server IP and ns1.mydomain.com.

I always pointed my domains via nameservers on my domain registrar.

Hi @CranberryPie

I’m not sure if we can help you out here: For running a own webserver, you should already know this.

Either you use own dns servers with a dns cluster on bind or you use external servers like cloudflare - then you don’t need to add any dns zones to hestia.

Hello @Raphael

I thought Hestia had support for dns clustering, like CPanel. The problem for me is I don’t want to use my registrars dns because they use a custom made panel and it some times glitches and I need to contact support. So I just wanted to host my own.

What about AWS to host my own cluster? How would I synchronize it with my Hestia installation?

There is already a long thread about building a own dns cluster running bind: Hestia and DNS management?

Just for the notes: There are already all resources for building up the cluster, but a decent knowledge and read in is needed, to get it working.

It’s not clear what you want to accomplish, a single HestiaCP + DNS all in one, or a DNS cluster

The DNS setup is pretty straight-forward either way:

  • configure vanity nameserver at your domain registrar (ns1.yourdomain.com xx.xx.xx.xx [Hestia IP] )
  • make sure Hestia has the dns zone (domain) created and the corresponding record for ns1 is present
  • wait for DNS propagation max 48h

Yes, Hestia has support for DNS clustering. You need to setup a second Hestia server (add ns2 at your registrar and on first Hestia server)

  • Create a dns-cluster user on the slave Hestia dns server
  • Run the next cmd on the first Hestia server:
v-add-remote-dns-host yy.yy.yy.yy 8083 admin p4sw0rd # (admin pass on slave server)
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I want my own nameservers (ns[dot]mydomaincom) so I can use them to point to my web server. I created “personal nameservers for my domain” also called “glue records” and have it pointed to my web server’s IP address. In my registrars custom dns fields I put “ns1[dot]mydomaincom” and “ns2[dot]mydomaincom

I just want to setup an authoritative dns server on my Hestia webserver.

So you are saying if I want to have “ns2[dot]mydomain.com” I need to setup a second server? What if I don’t have access to another server?

U’r almost there, now check you DNS zone in Hestia and make sure you have:

  • a NS(type) record ‘ns1.yourdomain.com’ and
  • an A(type) record for ns1 pointing to your IP

For ns2, yes you should have a second server for it to be a cluster. Otherwise you can point it to the same server IP and in this case your DNS won’t have any redundancy .

Wait an A record for “ns1”? Why is that needed, don’t you just need the SOA and NS records?

When I try to look up my DNS records it says " Loop detected! We were referred back to “My IP address”.

EDIT:
So does Hestia act as an Authoritative DNS server now where I can have hosted zones? I am trying to move away from AWS’s hosted zones (DNS zones) and host my own.

It appears to be an error with Hestia because: In my DNS Zone I have all the proper records though when I tried to add SSL to my domain under “Web Servers” it gives me an error of

Error: DNS record for mydomain[dot]com doesn’t exist

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I’m pretty sure there is no error in Hestia, there are thousands Hestia servers running this exact config, myself included. Even when you have everything configured properly you still need to wait for DNS propagation especially when changing NS, so I wouldn’t start configuring SSL / Let’s Encrypt untill everything else was ok.

Please post debug info here or in a private message if you need to keep your domain/ip out of the public forum, but I have to see the real data to do a validation from my side.

v-list-dns-domain user yourdomain.tld
v-list-dns-records user yourdomain.tld

If u want a simple solution, just make two A records in your domain registrar, with your server IP address, one for @ and another for www, this will let you SSL the site, if you want ssl on mail and webmail just add them as an A record too.

Then u can use cloudflare to point to your websites and have an extra layer of security.

Well, I got it working. What I did was remove the DNS zone and re adding it magically fixed it. I believe because I had the DNS zone prior to pointing the nameservers to the webserver.

Thanks for the help though.

Couple of questions:

  1. When I add an create a FTP account under the admin user, it does not allow me to login.

  2. I have to use https://my_server_ip:8083/login/ to access the admin panel sill, not my domain.

  3. When I upload my web contents to public_html it comes out as plain text, the css/javascript isn’t read. Is there a possible feature that blocks scripts from running server side perhaps?

  4. I setup a bind9 slave already for my ns2, do I use bind9 on the Hestia installation directly or do it through Hestia itself?

Without A records for ns1 and ns2 ?

  1. Don’t add website, ftp users or anything else under the admin user, create another one and move them there.
  2. you can use the hostname configured during setup if it’s resolvin to your server IP (or any domain pointing to that IP)
  3. Don’t understand. Css and js are plain text formats, only php is executed by the backend
  4. How is slave updating zone records from master, how about new zones?
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With the ns1 A record.

  1. I changed it over using v-change-domain-owner. By the way that command isn’t in https://docs.hestiacp.com.

  2. Do I need to run the install script again? There isn’t anyway to setup from the panel?

  3. Well even on the new user account it’s coming out as plain text. I tested my web files on another host and they are running fine.

  4. Well I setup the slave on another vps to test if it would work, now I want to know if I need to setup the master on my webserver vps (where Hestia is installed) through bind9 or through Hestia?

  1. v-change-domain-owner
  2. As i mentioned earlier: you can also use any domain pointing to that IP
  3. I have no idea maybe someone else can help out
  4. Master DNS would be the Hestia server in you case.

-2. My domain is already pointed to the IP, but nothing works, mydomain[dot]com:8083/login or my domain[dot]com/login

-4. But do I set it up via cli (bind9) or HestiaCP/cli?

  1. In this case it needs some troubleshooting on your side, out of the box Hestia nginx webserver it’s configured by default to listen to port 8083 on all interfaces and any hostname:
netstat -ntap | grep 8083
tcp        0      0 0.0.0.0:8083            0.0.0.0:*               LISTEN      20683/nginx: master

cat /usr/local/hestia/nginx/conf/nginx.conf | grep "# Vhost" -A 5
    # Vhost
    server {
        listen          8083 ssl;
        server_name     _;
        root            /usr/local/hestia/web;
  1. Hestia CLI, as i wrote earier here

My last question. For some reason my website is down now… but the admin panel is up… It went down after I transferred the domain to the user from admin. How do I bring it back up, do I need to transfer the cron jobs over from admin to user?

I also found evidence that Hestia + SSL + NGINX might be the reason the css/javascript won’t work. Not sure if you ever seen this happen before? My site was just plain text / un formatted.

  1. But what if I don’t want to setup a second Hestia installation? Why isn’t there direct support?

Hestia supports single DNS server setup too, but also multi server DNS cluster, you just need to make up your mind which one you want. A DNS cluster is implying two or more servers (cpanel docs)

Alright.

Can you tell me where to look for the issue that my site is offline?? Do the cron jobs need to be ported from admin to user or something? My VPS is online and I am able to access the admin control panel.