Best method for DNS replication using Cloud-/Virtual-/Webmin?

I am certain the answer is somewhere out in the world right now, but I've really struggled to make heads/tails of all the posts I'm reading! I think there are apparently at least 3 ways to do what I'm trying to do, so I can't figure out which of them I should do given my setup... or if some combo of them is required?? Please forgive me for adding another thread for this, but I just can't figure this out.

I have:

2 dedicated servers -- one local and one hosted remotely

  • remote server has multiple IPs associated with it (13, I think)
  • local server has one dedicated IP externally visible

(2 more dedicated servers I could roll into this mix if needed, and potentially VPS accounts)

Cloudmin for Physical Servers license and Virtualmin/Webmin on each system, of course

Setup is roughly:

  • Two servers are being controlled by one Cloudmin Master, but currently there is no Cloudmin replication, as I struggled with that and have just chosen to turn it off for now (it seemed to have gotten "stuck" on propagation, so I finally just ditched it to get back to the main setup.)
  • Nameservers are currently ns1.example.com and ns2.example.com, but both reside on a separate VPS account (Cpanel) that I'm migrating everything off of and into this Cloudmin setup. Eventually, I want these nameservers to live on Cloudmin/Virtualmin systems, without having to change all the many domains of mine & my clients (ie: keep everything ns1.example.com/ns2.example.com the whole time)

My current needs:

I'm ready to do all the migrations (can't find out a way to do this from Cloudmin, so I'm just going directly into each system's Virtualmin section and doing "Add Servers >> Migrate Virtual Server", so hope that's right!) I don't really think I've got any nameservers set up correctly on these new systems, since I'm unsure how to "move" ns1/ns2 from the IP of the other server over to two different new servers on this new setup. (To be clear, I have both NS's stupidly hosted on one server, using the same IP address... yes, dumb. I'm working to remedy the dumb with this new setup! :) )

My problem:

How in the world am I supposed to best set up the DNS on two (or like I said, potentially more if needed) systems running Cloudmin/Virtualmin?? I'd like to have things set up so I can add a domain to one system (that may be on the system with ns1. on it), and have the DNS propagate automatically over to the other system (that is running ns2.) I

I'd like to be able to just add/migrate a server onto one system (which also is home to a NS), and have the DNS zones propagate to the other system (which houses the other NS). As I see it, there are apparently three ways to do this, and I'm currently quite confused as to which I should choose:

  1. Cloudmin Services (Virtualmin > System Settings > Cloudmin Services Client), choosing only "DNS zones" as the Features to host.

  2. BIND DNS Server cluster (Webmin > Servers > BIND DNS Server > Cluster Slave Servers)

  3. I saw a "Slave DNS" module that I installed, but I'm not sure if that's reflected somewhere I can't find, or if it just enables some other slave options elsewhere?

  4. As I try to recall all of this, I'd swear there's even a fourth option! Maybe I'm just thinking of some sort of Virtualmin-specific step I ran across along the way.

Thank you VERY much for any help. I'm really feeling stuck here and I'd love to get this right the first time, before I end up with a bunch of migrated servers and have a mess to clean up trying to move DNS settings around. As I said before, I could add another server or two into the mix (they're running anyway), if it would be better to just separate DNS out somehow... or whatever. I just need guidance, please. :)

(Also, I'm very sorry if I just missed the key info elsewhere.)

Cheers, Paul

Status: 
Closed (fixed)

Comments

Thanks for the suggestion.

Since I want to add servers/domains to each of the systems separately, do I still only have one master for DNS? If system 2 is a slave and I add a server to it, will that DNS info get propagated back to the master?

It seems dumb to ask that, but I can't figure that out. I had tried setting up a "cross-slave" sort of setup, where each system is a master to the other, but that seems to break some laws of the universe.

Eventually, I do want to move to having a separate servers for database, web and such, so I suppose other options will present themselves as this setup gets more complex.

Thanks VERY much.

Actually, you can have two Virtualmin systems setup as slaves for each other - although of course each individual domain can only be either a master or slave on each system.

I see that I can have a working setup now, based on your suggestions. Thanks.

I have other questions about this for making it better in the long run, but I'll leave this alone for now and revisit this when I try to improve things.

Thank you very much!

OK, I will mark this bug as fixed then.

Automatically closed -- issue fixed for 2 weeks with no activity.