Free DNS server?

[Squick]

I have a question that maybe some of you super geeks know the answer to.

I registered a domain name with Network Solutions a few days ago, and of course now I need to tell them who my name servers are. I have a Windows 2000 server running DNS server, and I want to host my own DNS. But the problem is you can not give an IP of your name server, you need to give a name, so some other name server needs to be aware of who you are.

From the research I have gathered that means that I will still be authorative on my domain name, but I need someone else to act as my secondary domain host and allow domain transfers to that person. This in theory should be a pretty simple task, all I am asking the other server to do is be aware that my server is the server that knows what the DNS for my domain is, and to keep a copy of that, just like every DNS server already keeps a copy of what yahoo.com points to.

My question though is my ISP does not host DNS, so are there any free DNS hosts? Is anyone out there running their own server and DNS server, what do you do?

Thanks,

Squick

[NoSurrender]

may i ask what DNS is?

[Squick]

Domain Name Service...

Basically the Internet works by IP addresses, but you use an address, like www.yahoo.com.

DNS is the method for telling you that www.yahoo.com is actually the IP 216.109.118.68.

Thats DNS and routing in a nutshell. I want the ability to define what www.squick.cc goes to, and a MX record so I can send mail to my mail server, so I can be [email protected] or any other address I want.

Squick

[Tavin]

http://www.everydns.net/

[Hamma]

You can just add your own when you create it.. if its not in the DB it will ask what IP it is.

[Squick]

Originally posted by Hamma
You can just add your own when you create it.. if its not in the DB it will ask what IP it is.

Hey Hamma! I was hoping you would reply... Were you talking about the link that Tavin gave, or am I not understanding something else?

On my DNS server I do have the "squick.cc" domain set up with a MX record, and a couple hosts, I can also do a NSLOOKUP to my IP and am able to query those hosts and get the proper reply. But Network Solutions wants to know the "name" of my name server.

Squick

[Hamma]

So.. you have a new domain and are adding nameservers for it on InterNIC or your registrar?

Name it whatever you want to name it. When I created PSU I just called them name1 - name4.psu.com and added those in. When it noticed they were not in the InterNIC database it asked me what IP addresses they are.

[Squick]

AHH! Thanks a bunch Hamma... That is where the knowledge-gap was for me... I was under the impression that since you could not just put an IP in the nameserver area, you had to put a name. So I assumed you had to put a known-name. But it asks you for an IP... Very nifty...

Thanks again Hamma, works great now. I figured you would know what I was not getting about the process.

Squick

[Hamma]

np :D