Editing DNS entries in Cpanel (WHM)

My host was kind enough to provide me with WHM for CPANEL so that I could edit my own DNS entries. Unfortunately im not too clear on how things need to be set up and I dont have the luxury of experimenting as this is company's domains im dealing with here. The code pasted is for standard Standard Package

Id like to use this host's own nameservers which are:
ns1.chqdns.com
ns2.chqdns.com

I need to change it according to the screenshot from our previous host and I need done as soon as possible(lowest TTL right?):

http://i29.tinypic.com/9uuel2.jpg

; cPanel %cpversion%
; Zone file for %domain%
$TTL %ttl%
@      %nsttl%	IN      SOA     %nameserver%. %rpemail%. (
		%serial%	; serial, todays date+todays
		86400		; refresh, seconds
		7200		; retry, seconds
		3600000		; expire, seconds
		86400 )		; minimum, seconds
 
%domain%. %nsttl% IN NS %nameserver%.
%domain%. %nsttl% IN NS %nameserver2%.
%domain%. %nsttl% IN NS %nameserver3%.
%domain%. %nsttl% IN NS %nameserver4%.
 
%nameserverentry%. IN A %nameservera%
%nameserverentry2%. IN A %nameservera2%
%nameserverentry3%. IN A %nameservera3%
%nameserverentry4%. IN A %nameservera4%
 
%domain%. IN A %ip%
 
localhost.%domain%. IN A 127.0.0.1
 
%domain%. IN MX 0 %domain%.
 
mail IN CNAME %domain%.
www IN CNAME %domain%.
ftp IN CNAME %domain%.

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hosting4.JPG
- 115 KB
screenshot from previous host

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Hi,

When it comes to setting TTL and SOA values there are some guideline in setting up DNS SOA settings. The are RFC 2308 and RFC1912.

Check these out here:
http://www.isi.edu/in-notes/rfc2308.txt
http://www.isi.edu/in-notes/rfc1912.txt

According to RFC 2308 suggested default TTL value should be between 1 and 3 hours. In your previous host set this value to be 1 hour (3600 seconds) I'll suggest you to use 2 hours (7200 seconds). This value will affect how long a nameserver will serve the info gathered from your host (called negative caching). Once queried a nemeserver will serve this information from its cache for 1 hours. If you modify the values in your site it would mean that any DNS server accessed to your site will refresh this value in 1 hours time. It is good if you modify the values on your site very often. But this has a drawback that since each DNS server will serve the gathered data for only an hour they will need to re-query your server every hour. So it will create lots of traffic. Hence I'm suggesting you 2 hours instead.

But there is also the default TTL value. It will be used asa default when default TTL was not applied to any record. the value ofr this setting was 86400 in your previous host.

So the final result will be similar to the example below.

So the values for the variables you have displayed here should be:

%ttl% = 86400
%nsttl%= 3600 ( I'm suggesting 7200)
%nameserver%= ns1.chqdns.com
%domain%= arcelectronics.com
%nameserver%= ns1.chqdns.com
%nameserver2%= ns2.chqdns.com

you don't need these since your DNS seetinds are located outside of your domain. They would be only needed if your DNS settings were located in your domain.

I think taht your MX records are located in your domain so I'm suggesting you to add a custom text record to designate a SPF record:

%domain% IN TXT "v=spf1 mx ~all"

This will insure your operation without any problems.

Cheers,
K.

$TTL  86400
$ORIGIN arcelectronics.com
@      3600  IN      SOA     NS1.chqdns.com. root.arcelectronics.com. (
                                2009071401      ; serial
                                1800    ; refresh (30 mins)
                                900     ; retry (15 mins)
                                604800  ; expire (7 days)
                                7300 ) ; minimum (20 mins)
 
             IN    NS ns1.chqdns.com
             IN    NS ns2.chqdns.com
             
             IN    MX  10 mail.arcelectronics.com.

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Editing DNS entries in Cpanel (WHM)

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