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I have a self-managed dedicated server.

My hosting provier assigns a hostname associated with a static IP.

eg. myhost.dedicated-server.com and 123.123.123.123

I'm hosting multiple domains using 123.123.123.123

When internet users perform a ping to one of my domains:

eg. ping mydomain.com

The result is showing:

PING mydomain.com (123.123.123.123) 56(84) bytes of data.
64 bytes from myhost.dedicated-server.com (123.123.123.123): icmp_seq=1 ttl=49 time=173 ms

I don't want to display my reverse-resolving hostname to the public users.

How can this be accomplished?

A working example is when I ping cloudflare.com

It shows:

PING cloudflare.com (198.41.214.162) 56(84) bytes of data.
64 bytes from 198.41.214.162: icmp_seq=1 ttl=53 time=278 ms
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    Why would you want to do this?
    – Sven
    Sep 3, 2016 at 7:50
  • I don't think it's professional and clean to display hostname.hosting-provider.com. Often the hostname doesn't make any sense and appending with numbers. I would rather having it not being displayed, or showing mydomain.com when users are doing ping mydomain.com. Correct me if I'm wrong in this thinking.
    – KDX
    Sep 3, 2016 at 8:03
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    I don't think it's professional and clean to display hostname.hosting-provider.com - To be perfectly blunt, nobody cares what it looks like.
    – joeqwerty
    Sep 3, 2016 at 15:29

2 Answers 2

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First, you can ask your provider to set the PTR to a value you need/like. They should be willing to change the record.

If not, it isn't a fatal issue either. Your ping example is really irrelevant - nearly no one is going to do this anyway and most of those who might do it understand why the name is different and don't care - it's absolutely not "unprofessional".

The main area where the PTR gets important is with mail, but even that can be configured to work with the generic name, but is also the area why the provider should be willing to set the PTR for you.

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  • Is it possible to have the PTR unpublished? Or each IP is mandatory to have one?
    – KDX
    Sep 3, 2016 at 19:07
  • No, it's not mandatory to have a PTR record, but it's bad style to not have one and some services don't work at all or only limited without one, most prominently mail. Ask your provider, but if he is willing to delete it, he would also be willing to set it to a value of your liking. Anyway, it's completely pointless to care about it - either you need to have it at a specific value or it's utterly unimportant what it is set to.
    – Sven
    Sep 4, 2016 at 0:31
  • If the provider can modify PTR for me, is that meaning the value of a PTR record doesn't even need to be a hostname with an actual registrar registered domain?
    – KDX
    Sep 4, 2016 at 8:22
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If you really want to do this, you have to speak to your provider. It's their IP, so only they're able to change the reverse DNS record.

I don't think it's professional and clean to display hostname.hosting-provider.com.

I don't think so, and, for example, if you're running a MX, it's assumed best practice and quite wise to have matching forward and reverse DNS records.

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