I'm the de facto IT person for our small business, and I'm finally taking control of our domain's DNS settings after years of letting our web host manage it. I want to improve security and reliability by implementing DNS management best practices, but I'm unsure where to start beyond setting reasonable TTL values. For those who administer their own DNS, what specific record configurations, security measures like DNSSEC, and monitoring strategies would you consider essential for a basic but robust setup?
Nice move focusing on reliability. Start by auditing what domains and subdomains you actually own, then set up at least one secondary DNS provider and enable zone transfers only to that partner. If your provider supports DNSSEC, enable it and publish the DS record; also enforce 2FA and rotate credentials for anyone who can change DNS.
Key records to lock down: A/AAAA to point to your servers, MX for mail with sensible priorities, CNAMEs for aliases, and TXT records for SPF, DKIM, and DMARC. Don’t forget SRV records if you run services like VOIP or chat. Also arrange reverse DNS with your host so mail isn’t flagged as spoofed.
Security specifics: enable DNSSEC where possible; use TSIG or API keys with IP whitelisting for zone transfers; restrict edits to a small, auditable group; enable change notifications; consider enabling DNS query logging and exporting logs to a SIEM or central log store.
Monitoring strategies: set up uptime checks from multiple external locations; monitor DNS health (NXDOMAIN, SERVFAIL, TTL changes); watch TTL expiry and ensure records don’t drift; keep a change log and alert on unexpected edits.
Migration approach: start with a non-critical domain or subdomain, test changes in a low-risk window, document rollback steps; automate updates via API if possible; schedule quarterly reviews to revalidate records and security; ensure you have a documented incident response plan for DNS outages.
Questions to tailor advice: what registrar/host are you using? Do you have a dedicated secondary DNS? Are you running mail on your domain? Do you require dynamic updates or can you push changes via API? If you share a rough topology, I can sketch a starter blueprint.