Private Nameservers in WHM

1. Assign the Nameserver IP Addresses in WHM

In WHM, navigate to the left hand menu option “Basic cPanel/WHM Setup” and do the following:

Set the Primary Nameserver to ns1.yourdomain.com.
Then click Assign IP Address.
Repeat this for the Secondary Nameserver section, using ns2.yourdomain.com.
On the bottom of the page, click Save.

2. Setup the Nameserver a Records in WHM

While still in the “Basic cPanel/WHM Setup” section, do the following:

Beside the Primary Nameserver entry, click the “Add an A record entry for this nameserver” button
Repeat this for the Secondary Nameserver section

If you have already created a hosting account on your cPanel server for the domain you are using for your nameservers, performing the A record creation steps above should just create an entry for each nameserver in the existing DNS zone for the domain. However, if you have not yet(or do not intend to) set up a hosting account for the nameserver domain, the steps above will create individual DNS zones for each nameserver you have setup.

NOTE: If you are not hosting the main domain used for the nameservers on the same server, you will need to ensure you have added A records for the nameservers into the DNS zone for the domain with the domain hosting provider.
3. Restart the DNS Service

You should now just be able to restart the DNS service by doing the following:

Navigate to the “Restart Services” section in the left hand men;
Select “DNS Server (BIND/NSD)”
Hit the yes button in the right hand frame.

4. Register Your Nameserver Hosts with Your Domain Registrar

Before the nameservers we’ve just set up in WHM will work, you need to make sure that the correct details have been configured with your domain registrar. Each registrar handles the setting up of private nameservers differently so you should contact them to determine the method they use. Some let you control the setup from your domain control panel, however some require their administrators to create the nameserver entries for.

The most important point to make when contacting your registrar is that you wish to create private nameserver hosts to use with your own hosting server(some refer to these as child nameservers or domain hosts). Occasionally you will strike level 1 support staff who do not fully understand what you wish to do and may provide you incorrect instruction unless you specify this.

Once you know how they do it, you just need to set up the nameservers in their system as below:

Enter the names you would like to use; e.g. ns1.yourdomain.com and ns2.yourdomain.com
Enter the corresponding ip addresses details from your server that you wish to use.

Done!…Hopefully you now have working nameservers attached to your own domain.

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