Is it better to set up DNS on my own server or to let my registrar handle it?

Question

Possible Duplicate:
hosting your own DNS

I just got a dedicated server, and was wondering if I should set up DNS on it or take advantage of my registrar's (GoDaddy) free DNS service?

Which is the better option and why?

I have a very high traffic website hosted on the server if that makes any difference.

See here: http://serverfault.com/questions/23744/hosting-your-own-dns — Mark Henderson, Oct 07 '09 at 04:15

Tim Post · Answer 1 · 2009-10-07T18:46:43.813

3

Unless you are capable of hosting at least two DNS servers in geographically diverse locations, its much better to let someone else handle it. As far as CPU usage goes, DNS queries are cheap.

edited Oct 07 '09 at 18:46

answered Oct 07 '09 at 04:37

Tim Post

1,515
13
25

also the registrar probably has a much higher uptime and redundancy aswell – artifex Oct 07 '09 at 06:51

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Oct 07 '09 at 07:29

Unless you see some advantage in hosting your own DNS and can ensure redundancy you would be better off having your registrar deal with it. To host your own you should have two completely independent DNS servers, ideally in different geographical locations. Although not a technical requirement it is very highly recommended. Sooner or later any single server will go down, or at least not be reachable from other systems.

score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Oct 07 '09 at 06:35

Having a high-traffic site should not affect your DNS by much as DNS entries should be cached somewhere along the DNS hierarchy. Your 'authoritative' DNS servers should only be queried when an entry does not exist in another DNS server's cache or if it has exceeded the TTL value.

That said, just use an external service and save yourself the headache. There are a number of free ones if you are unhappy with your existing provider. I use EveryDNS.

Is it better to set up DNS on my own server or to let my registrar handle it?

3 Answers3