Overview of DNS Management in Parallels Pro Control Panel

Recognizing the business need for flexible and distributed name server configurations, Parallels Pro Control Panel has enhanced and extended its

DNS capabilities to provide for complex hosting requirements. Parallels Pro Control Panel enables distinctive name server configurations for different sites and allows for delegated zone management. It also maintains a detailed log of all DNS-related actions and events that you can use to identify and resolve issues.

The Domain Name System (DNS) is the mechanism that translates Internet domain names preferred by users, such as example.com, into IP addresses used by computers, such as 10.0.0.1. This translation is required because the network layer of the Internet uses IP addresses to identify domains; however, Internet users prefer to use names rather than IP addresses.

Note: You can manage zones in Parallels Pro Control Panel only if your service provider has enabled zone management for your account. If zone management is enabled for your account, the DNS option is displayed in the shortcuts section of the Home page. Further, your ability to manage zones and their records depend on the policy settings configured by your service provider. For example, if your service provider has disabled the add zone setting in the policy file, you will be unable to add zones. Contact your service provider if you want the settings changed.

DNS management in Parallels Pro Control Panel

To perform domain name and IP address translations efficiently, DNS has a distributed architecture composed of many hierarchical DNS name servers. Each DNS name server is responsible for both name-to-IP-address translations (called

forward lookups ) and IP-address-to-name translations (called

reverse lookups ). Each DNS name server manages the lookups for domain name spaces. In DNS, these domain name spaces are referred to as zones. The term zone is used to denote information, such as host records, about a domain.

A reverse lookup uses the IP address to find the domain name.

A forward lookup uses a domain name to find the IP address.

The slave name server provides backup service when the master name server is unavailable. It receives its data for a domain from the master name server.

The master name server is the primary server that serves requests for the domain.

Parallels Pro Control Panel implements the BIND DNS protocol enabling it to act as a name server. The name server settings determine the name resolution and zone management capabilities of the Parallels Pro Control Panel DNS server. You can configure the Parallels Pro Control Panel server to function as any of the following name servers:

Managing DNS zones for your domain

If your service provider has enabled you to perform DNS-related actions for domains, you can: