I'd like to host my own DNS name server to have total control on the DNS settings.
Is it a good idea to create a Windows 2012 VM (Iaas) on Windows Azure and use it as a DNS name server?
Problems I forsee:
Windows Azure SLA requires at least two instances? Not really a problem if the VM is down for < 20min since DNS should be cached downstream.
Azure VM Size? Extra small should do.
Changing IPs? Once you have the VM set up, Azure should not change your IP address unless you delete it.
Reverse DNS? I don't think hosting a nameserver requires a reverse IP DNS lookup.
Anything else? not really knowledgeable about hosting a DNS server, but I think it should work!
What am I missing?
Azure IaaS VMs have an SLA with a single instance, so you wouldn't need to worry about that.
Don't use extra-small for anything except development and testing. Network performance is erratic, ranging from very poor to non-existent.
The IP address will remain constant while the VM is deployed, yes.
However...
Are you talking about an internal DNS server, or a public nameserver? If the latter, hosting in a cloud datacenter is probably not the best approach. You'd be better off using a dedicated DNS provider like Zerigo.
Related
I've always used shared hosting for small business websites. I'm considering trying more modern alternatives like Linode, and I wondered if those cloud hosting plans come with a dedicated IP for the website I plan to host?
Yes.
To be more specific though, a "Linode" is a virtual machine (VM) from the company Linode. It's a server that you can use for whatever you want. The serve comes with an IPv4 address that you can use for whatever you want, such as a website.
this is the first time I am trying to host at Iaas level using microsoft azure. I have created a VM, microsoft server 2012. But I cannot access the VM using the DNS name.
Based on the content of the comments, I see three things that could be wrong
1) Apache is not listening on the external IP of the VM
2) Firewall is not configured to allow for access
3) Since you mentioned DNS, is that the *.cloudapp.net hostname or a custom DNS? If it's the latter, maybe it isn't distributed yet or misconfigured?
Which of these did you check already? Then we can guide you through the remaining ones.
I'm a little stuck when trying to configure an Azure site-to-site network. I'm using this to connect from Azure into another site for remote management of multiple devices there.
Currently, I believe the majority of the set up to be completed but I now need to secure public IP address for the external site so that they can add these to their firewall rules. Does anyone know how I am meant to acquire the public IP of the VM (which changes each time it is shut down and restarted) or the sites public IP connection to the external site?
Alternatively, what's the best way of doing this? I feel like a site-to-site network doesn't quite fit in with what I'm trying to do but I'm only being offered this solution from the external site (not necessarily just using Azure, though).
You can assign a static IP to your VM:
http://azure.microsoft.com/blog/2014/04/22/static-internal-ip-address-for-virtual-machines/
I have been search for a host that has static/fixed ip address. Right now i use mediatemple's grid server and because it is a shared environment the ip address is dynamic and changes randomly.
My issue is that i have a script on my sever that fetches data from an ftp site. To access the data via ftp, i have to authenticate using an ip address, username and password. Because the ip address is ever changing, i cannot access the data.
One alternative was asking the data company if they would accept a range of ip address or a wildcard but they will not. they will only approve one ip address for download.
The other option was to purchase a self managed server. I do not want to manage my own server nor do i have the expertise to do so. So I need a solution like a shared environment (low cost) with a cpanel but one that has fixed ip address.
Any suggestions would be much appreciated.
You should look for "managed server" or "VPS" solutions.
Which host you choose is up to you. Many hosts offer such solutions, and a smaller host might fit your budget better than a "big name" hosting company.
This is really surprising ... usually in a shared hosting account where your site is hosted on a shared IP, the shared IP address is always fixed it rarely changes. I think you're right now on CDN hosting, so your data delivery IP address varies according to your VISITOR location.
I am hosting my various sites like thewebhostingdir.com and etc at http://www.accuwebhosting.com/ ... on shared hosting and their IP address is fixed since the hosting setup.
I suggest you to change your hosting provider. You don't need VPS at this moment.
I found a solution. Godaddy vps virtual server starting at only $29.
I have a three-tier Windows-based web application bundled into 3 AMIs on Amazon EC2 that I use for load testing.
An ASP.NET web application on IIS
An .NET application server
SQL Server
After I launch them, the config files of each tier needs modifying to update the IP addresses.
At the moment I am doing this manually: I connect to the webserver instance via remote desktop and modify the config file to point to the new IP of the application server instance. Then I do the same with the application server to change the IP in the connection string.
This must be a common requirement and I must be missing something obvious. There must be a better way!
I could use Elastic IP addresses, but these machines are only provisioned for a couple of hours at a time, and I would be charged for the addresses when they were NOT in use (which would be most of the time).
Is there some way of persistently naming the machines? Can I somehow get all the machines on the same network and use machine names instead of IP addresses?
I could write some nifty PowerShell script that would perform the modifications remotely. Is there an example somewhere?
I could use a dynamic IP address service. I'm not sure if this would have any negative effect on performance or availability... Are there any downsides to this approach?
I could install some sort of self-configuring service on each machine (which connects to S3? SNS? SimpleDB?) to publish/retrieve the addresses of the other machines and update the config files automatically. Is there an example somewhere?
What is best practice?
You could use Amazon Virtual Private Cloud (Amazon VPC). You have a private subnet where you can assign an IP address to an instance, but it may require launching an instance from command line to assign IP. VPC is charged the same way as EC2.