[thelist] DNS management

[David Kaufman]

Hi Joel, 

"Joel D Canfield" <joel at streamliine.com> wrote:
>
> my [...] domain registrar won't give me support on their DNS tools.
> Do any of you use DNS tools separate from your registrar's?

Yes, I use www.EveryDNS.net, a DNS service that is:

- most excellent (created and operated by Evolter David Ulevitch), 
- stable & reliable (powered by djbdns, with current uptime measured 
  in years), 
- free (for up to 20 domains, after that small donation-based), and
- provides evolt.org's authoritative DNS service, and
- offers a full-control web-based interface that lets you do what you 
  want (by which I mean: just about anything)

You might believe that all DNS providers' free DNS services and 
control panels offer such freedom but -- trust me -- they do not.  
When they work (i.e. don't run bind), most are slow to update, don't 
allow DNS transfers, or wildcard CNAME records, or small ttl's, or 
impose a litany of other arbitrary limits that you quickly realize 
are unreasonable, as you learn to manage your own DNS records.

The EveryDNS UI design is looking a bit dated, and the flow from 
screen to screen can be a bit non-intuitive to new users, but you do 
get used to it and if that puts you off, you can simply do what we do 
at evolt.org: run your own private DNS server, and make EveryDNS's 
network geographically diverse front end DNS servers into your 
"slaves".

-dave