: Why do I need at least two nameservers? I own several domains, all hosted with Northhosts, but however I register my domains at GoDaddy (since they're cheaper). When I receive my 'New Account

@Pope3001725

From ServerFault:


The requirement to run two nameservers comes from §4.1 of RFC 1034, and is indeed for redundancy.

There are numerous providers who will offer you very cheap "secondary DNS" service where they transfer the zone file from your primary server using AXFR. For example, in the UK we have a well-known provider who'll do secondary service for 50 domains for just £2.30 a month (just over 3 bucks).

This will give you the ability to manage and run the zone yourself, but still give you the resiliency you need.


And another source:


The DNS specifications require that each domain name is served by at least 2 DNS server for redundancy.


Basically, it boils down to redundancy. If one DNS server goes down, the other can pick up the slack. If it didn't exist and your only nameserver went down your site would be down for anyone who could not receive a cached copy of your DNS zone information.

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