can i chnage dns names to my domain?

Hi; when i set up a new domain for my friend on my dreamhost space it gives me these dns names...

ns1.dreamhost.com.
ns2.dreamhost.com.
ns3.dreamhost.com.

is it possible to change these to

ns1.mydomain.com etc
?

I'd say no. The last place I was hosted gave me the option, but it required a dedicated IP address ($3.95/mo at DH) and special DNS entries for an extra $1 or so a month.

I also see no documentation at DreamHost mentioning this possibility.

-Scott

I don't think you can... it can't hurt to ask support about it if you're really interested. But why do you care?

These are just the nameservers. No one using your website will ever encounter these addresses. They will only be visible if someone does a whois lookup on your domain.

If your issue is that you don't want people to be able to find out who's hosting you, just use the IP addresses of the nameservers instead of the full addresses:
ns1.dreamhost.com: 66.33.206.206
ns2.dreamhost.com: 66.201.54.66
ns3.dreamhost.com: 66.33.216.216

That won't actually stop a tech-savvy person from figuring out your host, but it'll stop the average snoop.

Hey, wait -- do you mean "reseller client" when you say "friend"? Then I can understand why you might not like needing to tell them to give "dreamhost" addresses for nameservers....

It'd be neat if DreamHost had aliases for their name servers such as ns1.x15.com or something anonymous like that that didn't have a corresponding www.x15.com website.

-Scott

If you registered your domain through another registrar, such as GoDaddy, trying adding 3 cname entries that point to the DH nameservers (eg, ns1.yourdomain.com). Then login to your registrar's control panel and look for a "domain host" option. Add the 3 hosts you specified above and the IP addresses of the DH nameservers in the same order. This may work.

Edited by nuwake on 04/17/06 12:47 PM (server time).

Another thought -- not sure why this didn't cross my mind, but you aren't forced to use dreamhost's nameservers at all -- you just need access to nameservers *anywhere*.

For example, see http://zoneedit.com/ (free for up to 5 domains).