Secondary NS on Hurricane Electric

#1

Hi all,

Want to set up on the Hurricane Electric for secondary DNS services but keep on getting error messages.

Below is steps I’ve taken. Can anyone point out what I am missing:

  1. on box / Custom DNS / Using a secondary nameserver

“ns2.he.net xfr:216.218.133.2”

First part is the HE nameserver to use as secondary
Second is to allow AFXR from the MiaB machine to HE

  1. on HE DNS

“add slave”

Domain name - [[my domain]] (no box/ns - just the plain name)
Master #1 - ns1.box.[[my domain]]

Been trying different combinations of the above but always end up with “You must delegate to one of the slave nameservers”

#2

Have you pointed the nameservers at your domain registrar correctly? In other words, replaced ns2.box.mydomain.tld with ns2.he.net?

This is just a guess as I haven’t used Hurricane Electric for Secondary DNS, but they may check the delegation as a part of the onboarding process.

#3

Yeh I did that. I think perhaps problems must be at HE end since I managed to find another provider and verified that AFXRs are working fine from MiaB.

#4

Ok, great! My recommended provider is currently puck.nether.net unless you want a paid provider.

I have written a new guide to Secondary DNS to replace the long defunct link in the setup guide. I just need to get it formatted to look good and get it online … someday.

#5

Cool - I used https://freedns.42.pl

Both puck.nether.net (what a name!) and the above seem pretty good for keeping things simple while still giving access to raw info if needed

#6

I managed to get Hurricane Electric running very nicely and under 5 minutes, though!

Before you actually add the slave zones on the HE control panel, you’ll need to actually delegate them on your box and on your registry (or registrar).

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In my case, I will need to delegate all four of the servers presented (the Internet standards recommend between 2 and 7 servers answering) before I can add the zone.

So in your box you would put:

ns1.he.net ns2.he.net ns3.he.net ns4.he.net ns5.he.net xfr:216.218.133.2 xfr:2001:470:600::2
(You can actually delegate ALL FIVE of them)

Then add those to your registrar (example for Namecheap)

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Only then, you create the zone on HE:

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image.png1116×795 56.6 KB

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Using a secondary nameserver with dns.he.net | nsX.he.net
#7

Yeh I’ve found HE to be very strong technically but a bit short with the messages/instructions. I have managed to get it to work for other domains but very hit-and-miss (and mysterious when missing what is breaking down).

Anyway; I give it another shot based on your screenshots and see how it goes (just tried and failed again but that might be due to DNS propagation issues; lets see again tomorrow…)

Never mind - just tried again and it worked; great thanks for the helpful guide.

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