So, if I want my address to go to my website on my host, I'd set my nameservers to:

ns1.myhost.com
ns2.myhost.com

But what if I rent a dedicated server. I could have my own nameservers, so

ns1.mysite.com
ns2.mysite.com

... go to my site, right?

But what exactly is a nameserver, and how do I do this?

Thanks

If you had a dedicated server, you'd probably have DNS running on it such as BIND. So yes, you would have your own name servers and your domain would be pointing to them.

How to set this up depends on the server you get and the software that's running on it. Your server provider should help you set this up.

Thanks, Anacrusis.

I see now that a nameserver isn't a seperate piece of equipment .

What would stop somebody else making their server ns1.mysite.com though?

They can't, you have to register the nameservers with the registrar that you registered your domain with.

I think I see... so you need to give the registrar an IP?

yes, if you have DNS running on your server, you would setup a nameserver with your registrar using the IP of your server. You can have multiple nameservers on one server, or you can spread the out across multiple servers. But you should always have at least 2.

I just reread my previous posts, I hope I am not confusing you. The term 'servers' seems to apear twice in every sentence

Lol thanks, Anacrusis, I understand now - you just filled a gaping hole in my internet knowledge