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Serving Sites with External Domain Name Servers

If you host web sites on this server and have a standalone DNS server acting as a primary (master) name server for your sites, you may want to set up your control panel's DNS server to function as a secondary (slave) name server:

  1. Click the Domains shortcut in the navigation pane.
  2. Click the required domain name in the list.
  3. Click the DNS icon.
  4. Click the Switch icon in the Tools group.
  5. Specify the IP address of the primary (master) DNS server.
  6. Click Add.
  7. Repeat steps from 1 to 5 for each web site that needs to have a secondary name server on your server.

To make the control panel's DNS server act as a primary for a zone:

  1. Click the Domains shortcut in the navigation pane.
  2. Click the required domain name in the list.
  3. Click the DNS icon.
  4. Click the Switch icon in the Tools group. The original resource records for the zone will be restored.

If you have external name servers authoritative for some of your web sites, switch off the control panel's DNS service for each site served by external name servers:

  1. Click the Domains shortcut in the navigation pane.
  2. Click the required domain name in the list.
  3. Click the DNS icon.
  4. Click the Disable icon in the Tools group. Turning the DNS service off for the zone will refresh the screen, so that only a list of name servers remains.

    Note: The listed name server records have no effect on the system. They are only presented on the screen as clickable links to give you a chance to validate the configuration of the zone maintained on the external authoritative name servers.

  5. Repeat the steps from 1 to 3 to switch off the local domain name service for each site served by external name servers.

If you wish to validate the configuration of a zone maintained on authoritative name servers:

  1. Click the Domains shortcut in the navigation pane.
  2. Click the required domain name in the list.
  3. Click the DNS icon.
  4. Add to the list the entries pointing to the appropriate name servers that are authoritative for the zone: click Add, specify a name server, and click OK.

    Repeat this for each name server you would like to test. The records will appear in the list.

  5. Click on the records that you have just created.

    Plesk will retrieve the zone file from a remote name server and check the resource records to make sure that domain's resources are properly resolved. The results will be interpreted and displayed on the screen.