DNS Hosting

[Jobos]

We have been using Vidahost aka Tsohost for our web and DNS hosting for a good few years but now the head has bought into Primary Site and we have had the new website running for a month. Vidahost is paid up until the new year and they still provide DNS hosting but the head is not going to pay to renew Vidahost just so they can continue to host the DNS. Primary Site has offered to take over DNS hosting but I will not have any control over it which comes in really handy sometimes.

 

How do other schools handle their DNS hosting? Is there anything free but still good?

[FN-GM]

Who is the registrar? I would usually use their DNS service.

[Marky_Gee]

If they are still going to continue paying the registrar, most registrars usually offer some kind of DNS.

I have my nameservers pointed at cloudflare (free) to handle DNS.

[mavhc]

Use cloudflare, then you can get LE wildcard certs without opening any ports. And it's free

[MrKJLS]

Cloudflare is good and free and offers some basic security services under the free plan. Office 365 comes with free dns hosting

[Jamman960]

We’re still using TSOHost for DNS despite no longer paying for hosting, they are also our registrar

 

I’ve been meaning to switch though as they still don’t offer 2fa

[IrritableTech]

I’ll second (third) cloudflare. It was super useful when we had someone attempt to take down our website too. Two factor protected, multi domain, they cache your stuff world wide if you want. They’re ace.

[msi_school]

I like to keep my Registrar, DNS and Webhost separate so in the event of any one having an issue I can quickly transfer services to another, this is more expensive but all of it costs of the webhosting are minimal when compared to almost any of our other yearly planned expenditures.

 

For most schools the website being down is a major issue and I think these extra tens of pounds are worth it for some reliability.

 

I also do off site backups of the website.

[Roberto]

How complex is your DNS namespacespace? Where you say that being able to control your own DNS space 'comes in handy sometimes' - is this not a value to the business you can quantify to the head - I assume you mean setting up new services that require a DNS change to track? Have you made it clear to the head you will not be able to do this in a timely manner if you go with their proposal?

 

Do you use AWS or Azure already? Both of those provide DNS-as-a-Service offerings.

[Jobos]

Thanks for all the advice. @Jamman960 It looks like TSOHost is going to close our webservice anyway as there was a notice when I logged on to the domain DNS. They haven't started sending out emails yet but the info is here https://help.tsohost.com/knowledge-base/article/13775

 

Office 365 didn't make it clear where I could setup DNS but I did find an error showing on the DNS checker page with one of the SVR records. I spent some time back on TSOHost trying to get that right until I realized I didn't need to enter the underscore as it was done automatically.

 

Cloudflare looks good and I've started the free service. I've entered all the DNS records, just need to change the name server back at TSOHosts to point to Cloudflare but wanted to ask here first if it's recommended I transfer the domain to Cloudflare or leave it with TSOHosts even if we no longer use them, ie. in years to come could I ask TSOHost to transfer the domain? Are there any costs involved to transferring our domain name (.sch.uk) to Cloudflare?

[mavhc]

I suggest transfering your domain to nominet for £10

[Jobos]

I suggest transfering your domain to nominet for £10

 

Didn't know you could do that.

[Jcx500]

Azure dns or CloudNS

[MicrodigitUK]

Across our academy trust we use the free variant of Cloudflare for all externally accessible DNS. Also handy for the free SSL functionality for HTTPS. And the additional protection provided by their proxying and content delivery network. For any domain that is not a free “sch.uk” one, we use Cloudflare as our domain registrar as they are the cheapest on the market for annual renewals.

[GrumbleDook]

Cloudflare and get away from TSOhost asap.

I'm in the process of moving all my work and personal sites off them to go to 34SP ... a bit more expensive for hosting but with it, but DNS is all going to cloudflare, save one that will remain with dyndns.

[MYK-IT]

Sorry to jump in, but we currently have our website (and various) domains registered and hosted by TSO Hosts (and before @GrumbleDook just posted about moving totally away from TSO Host) I was going to initially ask about the process / benefits of moving DNS from TSO to Cloudflare?

 

I presume that moving DNS to Cloudflare (at the least) would better protect our school website?

 

TSO are also registrars for our schools domains (sch.uk and other TLD) - Again, the general consensus to move away from TSO and use Cloudflare (and Nominet for .sch.uk)?

 

Finally, if going the full hog (following @GrumbleDook's recommendation) of moving everything away from TSO what web hosts are people recommending? (We moved to TSO years ago, as at the time they was being recommended by many on here)

 

Many thanks,

[TechMonkey]

When people say they are using CloudFlare free, is this an offer to schools or are you using the hobby version?

I looked at it before and have to say I got a bit confused as there didn't seem to be a simple host DNS option.

 

Many thanks

[Katy]

+1 for CloudFlare - if you don't want to use the free one, the next level up is only $20 a month, I use that for my blog site and some DNS.

Other DNS I use Azure, cost is minimal (pennies a month) depending on query volume.

[mavhc]

Just the free cloudflare tier

[MYK-IT]

Quick question,

 

When adding the various MS365 DNS Entries to CloudFire is it best practice to set as 'DNS Only' or as 'Proxied'?

 

I note when adding the selector1._domainkey entries it auto-sets as 'DNS Only'.

 

Using the downloaded zone file via M365 Admin Centre > Domains > Manage DNS many of the other M365 records are set as 'Proxied' and TTL as 'Auto'; despite the guide stipulating TTL 1hour etc.

 

Just didn't know if may cause any SSL (certificate) mismatch or authentications errors as these Microsoft URLs will be cached via Cloudfire (different IPs).

 

Thanks,

Edited September 16, 2022 by MYK-IT

[MrKJLS]

Quick question,

 

When adding the various MS365 DNS Entries to CloudFire is it best practice to set as 'DNS Only' or as 'Proxied'?

 

I note when adding the selector1._domainkey entries it auto-sets as 'DNS Only'.

 

Using the downloaded zone file via M365 Admin Centre > Domains > Manage DNS many of the other M365 records are set as 'Proxied' and TTL as 'Auto'; despite the guide stipulating TTL 1hour etc.

 

Just didn't know if may cause any SSL (certificate) mismatch or authentications errors as these Microsoft URLs will be cached via Cloudfire (different IPs).

 

Thanks,

 

Do them as DNS only

[Katy]

DNS only - Proxied is what you'd set if you want to protect a site, MS stuff will have its own protection and probably won't like being sat behind CloudFlare. However, if you were to add your school website DNS here I'd set that as proxied to protect the site from attack.

[dmj]

Just a headup tp be aware that Cloudflare do have a rather sketchy history when it comes to them facilitating far right content associated with supporting mass shootings, terrorism neo-nazi groups etc. They have pretty 'liberal' views on access to this type of material. I can't critisise their technology, which is awesome, just be aware that that there could be backlash for paying cloudflare when it comes to schools and there are other providers around offering similar services.

[mavhc]

Paying for things is so old fashioned, can get a free domain, dns, server, and software to run on said server these days

[dmj]

Paying for things is so old fashioned, can get a free domain, dns, server, and software to run on said server these days

 

It's the security layer your paying for with these services, not the DNS, and running multiple public facing DNS servers isn't trivial for most school sysadmins.