How To Set Up Private Nameservers at a Registrar

Private nameservers are needed when the server running your website will manage the DNS for your domain. Unfortunately, the methods to set them up vary by the domain registrar, so no one set of instructions will suffice. Hostwinds clients often choose to use Private Nameservers for a Cloud VPS or Dedicated Server, and this guide will go over how to set this up.

How Do I Create Private Nameservers?

The basic steps are:

Step 1: At the registrar, create private nameserver domain names associated with the IP address of your server, e.g., ns1.mydomain.com and ns2.mydomain.com, both pointing to 104.168.x.y

Step 2: At the registrar, set those nameservers to be the nameservers for the domain.

Step 3: In the server, add A records that also point ns1.mydomain.com and ns2.mydomain.com to your server's IP address

Step 4: In the server, set the NS records to be your private nameservers of ns1.mydomain.com and ns2.mydomain.com.

(step 3 and 4 vary by server setup)

Here is how to set up private nameservers at various registrars:

Here at Hostwinds

GoDaddy

NameCheap

Google Domains

Register4Less