Temporary (?) VPS setup for Tommy's transition

[infantex]

Hi, all.

I opted to setup a (temporary) VPS while Tommy is (fully) back online. My VPS was configured with Hestia (Thanks!). I received the SSH and Hestia usernames/passwords and was able to connect to both and change the passwords.

I also added a new user to Hestia (zaldivar) as well as a domain  under that new user (zaldivar.mx). I only use this domain for email (managed by HelioHost), I selected the "Add DNS Zone" and "Allow email" options when adding the domain. I created two email accounts, and I can see the SMPT and IMAP configuration for both on a box to the left (no POP, however!). But when I try to go to webmail.zaldivar.mx I get a: "Service unavailable" web page. What am I missing? Should Tommy "release" the zaldivar.mx domain first?

Another question: 

I tried to add a third Hestia account: infantex, to configure and host my website infantex.com.mx under that account but I received the message that the account already existed. Could it be that my SSH username is infantex? I wouldn't think so. 

I currently use infantex.com.mx only for a static website, also hosted by my Tommy account (still up and running). Email for that domain is managed by Google (and so, working, as opposed to zaldivar.mx's mail)

Thanks for the help.

Regards,

[balloons]

$ dig zaldivar.mx

;; ANSWER SECTION:
zaldivar.mx.            14400   IN      A       65.19.143.6

The domain zaldivar.mx still references Tommy. You need to change it.

[infantex]

I guess, from your answer, that 65.19.143.6 is Tommy. So how do I change the reference? I can't log into Tommy, can I? 

[balloons]

Since the name server was also managed by cPanel, this also needs to be temporarily managed by VPS or another service is used.
You should be able to log in to the registry (ore reseller) and change the name server of domains.

https://dns.he.net/
Hurricane Electric Free DNS seems to be used by many HelioHost users. This is also the location of the HelioHost server.

https://www.cloudflare.com/
I like Cloudflare. since this is a CDN service, it has many other functions besides DNS.

[infantex]

The email from Krydos said to set the domains A record to the VPS IP (65.19.141.197), so I went to Hestia and checked that there's an A record pointing to that IP.

I also noticed a pair of @ records (whatever that may be) of type NS that pointed to ns1.heliohost.us and ns2.heliohost.us. My DNS were set to ns1.heliohost.org and ns2.heliohost.org. I went and changed them to "us". And tried to test them with nslookup.

$ nslookup
> server ns1.heliohost.us
nslookup: couldn't get address for 'ns1.heliohost.us': not found

When I set the server to ns1.heliohost.org I get the IP @balloons reported (Tommy's?). So I guess changing DNSs was not what I was supposed to do... But I think that's the only thing I can change for the domain from outside cPanel.

[infantex]

6 minutes ago, balloons said:

Since the name server was also managed by cPanel, this also needs to be temporarily managed by VPS or another service is used.
You should be able to log in to the registry (ore reseller) and change the name server.

https://dns.he.net/
Hurricane Electric Free DNS seems to be used by many HelioHost users. This is also the location of the HelioHost server.

https://www.cloudflare.com/
I like Cloudflare. since this is a CDN service, it has many other functions besides DNS.

I was composing my previous post and didn't see you reply.

My registry is akky.mx. I just changed the DNS there (in Akky) to ns1.heliohost.us and ns2.heliohost.us but... see my results above: the heliohost.us domains are not recognized, neither when I issue the nslookup command from a ssh prompt in the VPN or in my local Windows machine.

Should I also create an account with https://dns.he.net/ and/or cloudfare and set the DNS there, or should the changes I made in akky.mx be enough?

Edited July 20, 2021 by infantex
add final questions

[balloons]

In this case, one of the name servers is set to VPS (Name server registration required), And you'll need a slave server. 
https://dns.he.net/ can also be used as a slave.

Setting up a name server with an external service will work better than that.

 

[balloons]

I haven't touched Hestia at all, so I can't answer this.
Please wait for other people's comments on this.

[infantex]

11 hours ago, balloons said:

In this case, one of the name servers is set to VPS (Name server registration required), And you'll need a slave server. 
https://dns.he.net/ can also be used as a slave.

Setting up a name server with an external service will work better than that.

 

Sorry, I didn't understand your answer at all. My fault, I'm not a sysadmin or anything.

When you say: "In this case, one of the name servers is set to VPS", do you mean:

• "Right now, as it is, one of the NS is set to VPS", in other words, something I did set the NS to the VPS and I shouldn't have done that.

Or do you mean:

• "One of the NS should be set to the VPS". If that's the case, how should I do that.

Then, when you say: "Name server registration required". How should I do that?

And then, "you'll need a slave server, [dns.he.net] can [...] be used as a slave". Well, I take I'll need to get an account with them (paid, free?) and figure out how to set a slave server but... if there's a slave, there should be a master, what would the master need to be and how do I set it up?

Question: HelioHost's name server's can't be used with HelioHost's VPSs?

Another question: Are HelioHost name servers ns1.heliohost.org and ns2.heliohost.org or ns1.heliohost.us and ns2.heliohost.us?

A little background so you can see where I'm coming from: I have an account in Tommy with two domains. One of the domains (the one I'm trying to configure right now, zaldivar.mx) is only used for email, so there can be addresses like jorge@zaldivar.mx, and so on. Just that. In Tommy, as far as I remember, I just had to add the accounts (name and password) and set (or not) a quota, and that was all. The only other thing I had to do was set the DNS for zaldivar.mx to ns1.heliohost.org and ns2.heliohost.org in the site I adquired the domain from (akky.mx, is that called a "Registry", it's the official site in Mexico for domain registration). That's (almost) all I know about email server setting.

I said "almost" because the other thing I know (also from my experience with HelioHost) is to set MX records for when the email was not managed by Tommy (my other domain, infantex.com.mx, has it's email handled by Google Apps).

Regards,

[Unknown025]

I'm a little confused as to why nameservers are involved. If you're trying to setup email, you don't need to fiddle with the name server settings. Normally you can use HelioHost's name servers, but they're currently impacted by the revocation of our cPanel licenses. I'm not sure who your domain provider is, but for example my domain came with preconfigured name servers. If you're trying to point the domain "zaldivar.mx" to your VPS, you'll want to create an "A" record that points to your VPS's IP address.

For email, you'll want to create an MX record that points to your email server. It's a little complicated - the MX record needs to point to your email server, not an IP address. Mine is configured to point mydomain.com to mail.mydomain.com. The second domain (mail.mydomain.com) can then point to your VPS's IP. However, I don't think that's the cause of the "Service Unavailable" page you're seeing - for that I'd check the error logs, if Hestia provides them.

[infantex]

Thanks for your help. I don't know either (why nameservers are involved.

@balloons said that zaldivar.mx still pointed to Tommy, and then went on to say that nameservers needed to be managed by the VPS and/or another provider, not by HelioHost.

My domain provider is akky.mx.

As I told before, I have very limited experience with setting up servers. That's why I took the recommendation from @Krydos to have my VPS set  up with Hestia control panel.

Hestia set up a DNS zone with the corresponding records. This is the result:

There's the A record pointing to my VPS's IP you mention. There's also an MX record that points to mail.zaldivar.mx, also as you say. And there's an A mail record that points to the VPS's IP. So everything seems to be set up correctly. But still, not working.

I don't see an option in Hestia to check error logs, I'll try and find out.

In the meantime, I'll change the NS records Hestia set as heliohost.us to heliohost.org, don't know if this will make any difference. When I changed the DNS in my domain provider to the ones ending in .us the effect was that the dig command (whatever that is), instead of returning 65.19.143.6 as zaldivar.mx's IP now has no ANSWER section (!?). 

EDIT: I found out how to access error logs, but they're empty! (The access log is also empty.)

[wolstech]

You need to set a single NS record at your registrar pointed to your VPS's IP, and remove the HelioHost NS records. This will cause devices visiting your domain to ask your VPS for the DNS information (it'll respond saying the site is on the same IP).

Your VPS is configured correctly. If I do an nslookup and use your VPS as the name server manually, it resolves:

> zaldivar.mx 65.19.141.197
Server:  [65.19.141.197]
Address:  65.19.141.197

Name:    zaldivar.mx
Address:  65.19.141.197

 

[OnEnemy]

https://docs.hestiacp.com might have information regarding hestia. Take a gander once you've tried everything else.

 

 

[infantex]

33 minutes ago, wolstech said:

You need to set a single NS record at your registrar pointed to your VPS's IP, and remove the HelioHost NS records. This will cause devices visiting your domain to ask your VPS for the DNS information (it'll respond saying the site is on the same IP).

Your VPS is configured correctly. If I do an nslookup and use your VPS as the name server manually, it resolves:

> zaldivar.mx 65.19.141.197
Server:  [65.19.141.197]
Address:  65.19.141.197

Name:    zaldivar.mx
Address:  65.19.141.197

 

When I try to do that, I get the following error from my registrar: "Invalid domain type: 197" (that's a translation, the actual error message is in Spanish). I tried adding the extra trailing dot (65.19.141.197.) but got the same error.  😞

EDIT: I contacted Akky.mx to ask them how to enter an IP as DNS. I was told to enter "ns1.zaldivar.mx" as DNS, and a field was enabled so I could enter the corresponding IP. Good. 

QUESTION; Do I need to set an NS1 record of type A (in Hestia) that points to my VPS's IP? (Because I used ns1.zaldivar.mx as DNS.)

ALSO: Do I need to delete the @ reccords of type NS that point to HelioHost's servers?

[wolstech]

7 hours ago, infantex said:

Do I need to set an NS1 record of type A (in Hestia) that points to my VPS's IP? (Because I used ns1.zaldivar.mx as DNS.)

Yes. Create an A record called ns1 with your VPS IP. It shouldn't actually be necessary since the glue record exists at your registrar (that's that field where you put the IP was for), but it's proper form for a name server to be aware of all valid subdomains for a domain it is authoritative for (that includes it being aware of itself).

Also, yes you should remove any records pointing to HH's name servers since you're running your own on your VPS.