How to set up private nameservers

By default, every client account you create points at nameservers named after the underlying hosting platform. That is a minor but constant reminder to every client, every time they check their domain settings, that you are reselling somebody else's infrastructure. Private nameservers replace that with names on your own domain — ns1.yourbrand.com and ns2.yourbrand.com — so a client sees your brand and nothing else.

It is a small piece of setup with one step that trips almost everyone up the first time: nameservers named after a domain need to be registered slightly differently to a normal domain record, because of a chicken-and-egg problem in how DNS resolves them.

Why this needs an extra step

A normal DNS record for ns1.yourbrand.com would live in the DNS zone for yourbrand.com — but to look up that zone, a resolver needs to already know where the nameservers for yourbrand.com are. If those nameservers are ns1.yourbrand.com and ns2.yourbrand.com themselves, you have a circular problem: you cannot look up the nameservers without already knowing where the nameservers are.

The fix is a glue record: an IP address registered directly against the hostname at the domain registry level, sitting outside the normal DNS zone, that breaks the circle. This is the step people miss, and it is also the step that has to happen at the registrar, not in your hosting control panel.

Setting it up

1. Choose your nameserver names

   ns1.yourbrand.com and ns2.yourbrand.com is the standard pattern, and there is little reason to deviate from it. Use a domain you control long-term — this is not something worth changing later once client domains depend on it.

2. Get the IP addresses

   Your reseller control panel or account details will show the IP addresses your account's DNS answers from. These are what the glue records need to point at.

3. Register the glue records at the registrar

   This is done wherever yourbrand.com itself is registered, usually under a setting called "child nameservers", "host records" or "glue records" — the exact label varies by registrar. You are registering ns1.yourbrand.com and ns2.yourbrand.com as hostnames tied to specific IP addresses, separately from any normal DNS record for the domain.

4. Set up the matching side in your reseller control panel

   Your reseller account also needs to know it is answering as these nameserver names, so that it responds correctly and consistently to lookups for domains you point at them.

5. Test before you rely on it

   Query the new nameservers directly rather than assuming they work:

   dig NS yourbrand.com
   dig @ns1.yourbrand.com yourdomain.com

   You are looking for a clean answer from both queries before you point any real client domain at them.

6. Roll it out to client accounts

   New accounts can use the private nameservers from creation. Existing clients need their domains updated at whichever registrar holds them, which is the same process as pointing any domain at hosting — just with your own nameserver names instead of the platform's defaults.

What this does and does not achieve

Private nameservers are one piece of presenting your hosting business as its own entity — see how to white-label everything a client sees for the rest of it, including branding in your billing system and client-facing emails. On their own, nameservers change what a client sees when they look up their domain's DNS; they do not change anything about how the hosting itself performs, and they are entirely optional if you are not concerned with a client noticing the underlying platform's name.

Once it is live

New client accounts should default to your private nameservers from the point you create them — see how to create a hosting account for a client for where that setting sits in the account creation process. If you get stuck on the glue record step specifically, contact us with your account details and we can confirm the IP addresses your reseller account should be pointing at.