Question Linode DNS, records Plesk creates, Google, I just need simple set up.

[fishtails]

Hello, new plesk user here. Over the last several years I've been using Linodes and their DNS, no hosting control panel like plesk or cpanel, just did everything in terminal. I'm not a business webhoster, just a guy with a couple linodes doing some django stuff and hosting a couple web sites for personal and family. I've essentially just used Linodes DNS and had a few records to point to my linode along with one MX for password resets and such.

Figured I'd give plesk a go and see if it would make things a little easier for maintaining what sites I do have. Bought the Admin panel as I'm not selling hosting anyway. But, when I created my first couple of domains in plesk, 19 records were created for each. Are all these records really needed? I don't care about search engine rankings or anything like that as I'm not in the business of selling anything, I really could care less about running my own DNS, because quite frankly, DNS gives me a headache. I watched the tutorial on udemy for installing plesk on linode, but when it mentioned making linode as my dns and that was all I had to do, it kinda left me not sure about adding any more records or not, like, what about the mx for a mail.example.com and such?

CURRENTLY: My registrar is at google domains, so I already created a couple of hostnames, ns1 and ns2, both pointed to the same ip at plesk (on a linode). I might add that the site are serving up with no problem. But is this an ok set up as is and leaving linode out of it, or should I point from google to linode ? If I point to linode, do I have to add all of the records plesk created during creation of the website to the Linode DNS manager? As I mentioned before, I do not want to run my own dns, I just want to serve up a few sites for my kin.

I hope this makes sense, cause I've read and re-read what I've written and confused myself to the point I've rewritten this several time too! LOL

Anyway, help a guy out. Thanks. ;>)

 

[Kaspar]

Howdy! Plesk offers DNS functionally, which can be useful to users who want to run their own DNS server or sync their DNS with a DNS provider. But you can ignore (i.e not use it) the DNS functionally and simply use an external DNS. As you rightfully pointed out, managing a DNS can easily give you a headache.

If Google is your domain registrar you could choose to mange your DNS with them. Just create the DNS records you need with Google domains an point them to your server(s) at Linode. Which is probably a bit more stable then managing the DNS directly from your server. I hope that my explanation makes some sense?

 

[fishtails]

If Google is your domain registrar you could choose to mange your DNS with them. Just create the DNS records you need with Google domains an point them to your server(s) at Linode.

Thanks, that clears up the where, but I'm unsure as to the 'what' records I actually need to create in Google. For instance, Plesk created records for:

• v=spf1 +a +mx
• v=DMARC1; p=none
• domainconnect
• acme challenge
• smtp
• pop3
• imap

Do I need these recreated at google so that plesk works right or can I safely ignore them. I only use email so I don't get a phone call asking to reset a password (yup, they still don't use a pw vault LOL), and what's the acme challenge and domainconnect for? I've used Lets Encrypt in the past just using Certbot, but never saw anything in their instructions on adding a TXT record for it.

Before using plesk, I had 3 records for each domain, @, www, and a mail.example.com, and the sites ran fine. But I was only doing some django stuff and a few static sites for family/friends and their service business. Simple stuff for a simple guy so all I need is the bare minimum necessary to operate plesk.

 

[Kaspar]

What records you need depends on what services you run (and use) on your server. By default Plesk creates records for all services that are configured/installed.

Are the smtp, pop3 and imap records of the SRV type? If so, those are used for the autodiscover function which automatically configures the right email settings when adding email accounts to email clients (such as Outlook and Thunderbird). You could remove those records if you're comfortable manually configuring you mailboxes or if you just use webmail.

More info on autodiscover: How to manage mail autodiscover in Plesk Obsidian?

I am not familiar with domainconnect. It's an Plesk Extension. I believe it is used to sync the DNS or domain settings from your server to some affiliated domain providers. It seems Google domains is supported, so it might be worth for you to check it out. Anyway I have my servers running without. You can safely ignore this DNS record and live without.

The acme challenge record(s) are needed for certain types of Lets Encrypt usage. I'am not 100% sure, but I believe that when a wildcard SSL/TLS certificate from Lets Encrypt the domain has to be verified trough a DNS record. So if you use wildcard SSL/TLS certificate(s) then those DNS records are necessary. Else I believe they can be ignored.

Are you sending email from your server? In that case setting up a SPF records (and the DMARC record to a lesser extend) is very useful and highly recommended. More on SPF: SPF & DKIM for Dummies: What Is It? Why You Want to Set It Up

 

[fishtails]

What records you need depends on what services you run (and use) on your server. By default Plesk creates records for all services that are configured/installed.

Thank you very much Rasp, you have been very helpful. The links you provided are good to have, particularly the last one about SPF &DKIM for Dummies, most helpful.

Now it's just a matter of determining which services I'll be using on the server.

The only email I will have is a support email to issue password resets and such, so only one email address. I was using the Google API through the WP SMTP for that, but it was going through my personal email. I'm not keen on the idea of relaying through my personal email account.

Thanks again for your great help. I hope I can return the favor some day.