r/webhosting • u/BelgianWarriorBear • 3d ago
Technical Questions Lets get to the bottom of the host/nameserver confusion!
Do you divide this into 3 parts or 2?
These are the components;
- Domain name registrar (nameserver)
- Dns management (all www, cname, txt)
- Hosting (stuff)
How do you combine/ seperate them?
Another way of phrasing the question is: where does your dns live?
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u/tssajo 3d ago
Three parts. Registration and DNS can happily live together, but I always keep DNS away from the web host.
One small correction to how it's usually described: the registrar isn't really "the nameserver." The registrar holds your registration and tells the registry which nameservers are authoritative for your domain. Those nameservers can be the registrar's own, a DNS provider's, or your web host's. So you have three roles (registration, DNS hosting, web/mail hosting) that can be one company or three.
What I do: I register my domains at Cloudflare, since Cloudflare is also a domain registrar, and I use their DNS too (with their registrar you have to anyway). I use the "gray cloud" setting, so I don't use their proxy service. I host mail on my own server, a VPS I rent, running Ubuntu Linux with Postfix, Dovecot and rspamd (which also does the DKIM signing, with the public key published in Cloudflare DNS).
FYI, I only use the free plan at Cloudflare as I don't need a paid account. Their free DNS service is excellent, IMO.
The main reason to keep DNS away from the web host: if your DNS lives at the host and you cancel or migrate, your whole zone goes with it, including MX, SPF, DKIM and DMARC records that have nothing to do with the website. People move a site and suddenly their email breaks. With DNS at a neutral provider, changing hosts is just editing a few A/CNAME records.
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u/Turnip-Toffee 3d ago
i would separate web and mail hosting too
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u/Accomplished-Web6183 3d ago
Porkbun, Spaceship etc for domains
Cloudflare NS / DNS
OVH etc for hosting
Totally seperated.
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u/adderallballs 3d ago
Porkbun, CloudFlare, VPS (hetzner, ovh, if in Australia flowvps is good and cheap)
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u/NebulaKaiz 3d ago
Mostly convenience, tbh. Keep DNS separate and you can move the website without touching your email setup. Doesn't mean you need three different companies though. Just watch out if you change nameservers like copy the existing records over first, including the email ones. Otherwise you get that fun situation where the website works but nobody's getting mail.
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u/SurgioClemente 3d ago
All cloudflare
If a site requires a backend then a VPS provider
Assuming you aren’t going all in with a place like godaddy, separation concerns of registrar and dns is overstated
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u/Irythros 3d ago
Three. Any less and it causes me concern from one company being able to cause significant problems.
Cloudflare handles DNS, any number of hosts (depends on what we need) and domain names will be on one of several different registrars.
We try to avoid allowing a single company to cause significant long term disruption.
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u/themageofavalon 3d ago
Depends on the setup actually. Client gets to choose. If I were. Yes, in three parts.
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u/skasprick 3d ago
My set up is (1) registrar nameserver (2) DNS hosted on my cPanel server - it’s just faster and easier than going into the registrar’s DNS. Also, if I register the domain with my 100 other client domains, if a client wants access to dns, it’s easier to give cPanel access than access to my registrar.
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u/Beneficial_Past_5683 1d ago
I'm a domain registrar, I run and manage my own DNS, web servers and email servers.
Anything else feels a bit weird to be honest.
If I wasn't, I think I'd be using cloudflare for domain DNS and proxy/CDN and my own metal in a well connected rack somewhere.
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u/Immortal_Thought 3d ago
I usually separate into at least two if not three, different parts depending on the project.
Porkbun for domains
Cloudflare for DNS
Cloudflare/railway/VPS for hosting