Pros and cons of using your own nameserver instead of the nameserver of your domain registrar?

Question

I'm planning on hosting my own website on the server inside my room. I have lamp-server installed as well as open-ssh configured correctly. I'm learning about nameservers and wanted to know if you're planning to host your own website, what are the pros and cons of using your own nameserver instead of the nameserver of your domain registrar?

Answer 1

Pros:

• You control it:
  • make changes instantly
  • use whatever technology
  • be as flexible as you want
  • You can setup highly complicated configurations (free; though some hosts include them)
    • zone transfers
    • split horizon
    • geodns
    • dynamic updates
    • ACLs, TSIG, DNSSEC
• Nobody else controls it: so they can't screw it up.
• Usually cheaper, especially if you already have a server on the net.
• Possible limitations inflicted by hosting removed: Usually they attempt some sort of security or arbitrary restrictions (price levels most commonly)

Cons:

• It's all your fault: When it gets screwed up, when it goes down, when the records are wrong.
• If you get hit by a bus who will take care of it? You should worry about this because, Murphy's Law says that anything that can go wrong will.
• Security: You have to know it and actually do it or you'll get pwn3d.
• Maintenance: though a typical name server takes very little if you know what you're doing.
• Learning: If you don't know what all the above is already, you certainly will by the time you're done (at least most of it; and assuming you don't want to be pwn3d).

Side note: You can use another DNS host besides your registrar. There are quite a few companies that do it very cheap. Also there are free backup DNS providers around so you can mitigate SPoF issues.

Answer 2

Pros: FUN

• If your registrar have some strange limits on their DNS settings or serves ads on non-existing hostnames or so, you get rid of it with your own server
• If you are do-it-yourself type, like to learn and deal with technical stuff, you will enjoy it.
• You are very likely to come here again with questions on how to configure it and why it doesn't work.

Cons: DOWNTIME

• When your ADSL is down, electricity blacked-out, fan inside the server failed, you misconfigured something and your server hangs, your rabbit bite the power cable or your roomba runs over the cord (details here), you DNS is out. For zillion tiny reasons, you home server is way less reliable than registrar DNS servers.
• When someone sends you email while the above happens, the mail will be returned and NOT delayed to be resent later.
• When your cable or your ISP connection congested, your server will respond slowly, and since DNS lookups time-out quickly your site may be not accessible at all (see the mail note).
• You will have to spend your time configuring it.
• You are very likely to come here again with questions on how to configure it and why it doesn't work.

Besides your registrar, there are many providers which can host DNS for you, see the biased list.

Answer 3

Your registrar typically will limit the number of DNS requests... too many in too short of a time... and you might get cut-off. Hosting it yourself means... you have yet another server to manage... and another point of failure that you have to worry about. As far as your tags go... this question has nothing to do with Apache2.