Help
This page focuses on actual issues and misconceptions that real MyBind users have had. Please read it fully and carefully, it won't take 5 minutes.
Example configs
Name servers
On your domain registrar control panel, use the following name servers for your domain name:
- ns1.mybind.com
- ns2.mybind.com
Common bind errors
If you see the 
error icon, hover your mouse over to see the error.
| Bind error | Meaning |
|---|---|
| multiple RRs of singleton type | Zone may have multiple CNAME records for a given name. |
| bad dotted quad | A record does not have IP address value. |
| not a valid number | MX record missing aux value (priority). |
About those dots
Some users seem to get confused about the FQDN qualifier (the dot you put at the end of domain names). Appending a dot to domain names simply makes the name fully qualified instead of being short-hand. This applies to data which is entered into the name and data fields for a zone record. You do not append this to the actual name of your zone, because it's already fully qualified (this is just the way BIND works - sorry if it's confusing).
Assuming we've named our zone "foobar.com", here's some rules for the record name and data fields (in the zone editor):
- "mail.foobar.com" actually means "mail.foobar.com.foobar.com.";
- And, "mail.foobar.com." (see the dot) is fully qualified.
- But, for record names, it's often best to use shorthand;
- Because "mail" means "mail.foobar.com." (so use "mail").
TTL and caching
"Please wait 24 hours" they say; it's a common misconception that all DNS updates take 24 hours to update. This depends entirely on your TTL for the zone (or individual records). TTL stands for "time to live". With MyBind, you choose the TTL that works for you. When a DNS client (or an ISP's DNS server) downloads your zone data, it will cache it for as long as the TTL; lets say it's 300 seconds. After 300 seconds of being in the DNS client's cache, it will become stale, and the DNS client will download fresh data when requested.
Adjusting the TTL can be useful for migrating websites to a different server with a new IP, where the site is using a database, and the old database must not be updated. You simply adjust the TTL to 120 seconds (2 minutes, which is the RFC recommended minimum), wait for any existing DNS client cache to expire, and then change the IP on the A record. This way, your maximum downtime is only 2 minutes. You could set the TTL to 1 second if you like, but this is widely regarded as risky.
Tips & Tricks
Use the Men & Mice DIG online website to test your DNS records - it's pretty good.
If you're still not sure about all of this, then please contact us.