Hi there, I've just signed up for a Ready-to-go server and after a little trial and error seem to have got my private nameservers working using a domain at GoDaddy. Only query I have about them now is that my etc/resolv.conf file shows two IP addresses, neither of which are those I'm using, but as far as I can tell everything seems to work as I expected. Do I need to update this file with the correct details?

And if my nameservers are OK, are there any next steps I need to take before creating accounts and uploading site files? Reverse DNS, any security steps perhaps?

Thanks!

The two IP's in your resolv.conf are the nameservers your server uses to resolve domains or reverse-resolve IP addresses and these IPs are almost certainly the caching nameservers of the planet's for your datacenter (you can do a lookup on the ip's to see which ones they are if you're curious). (In the past people used to use their own server's nameservers to resolve, but this was deemed to be more of a security risk with dns poisoning.)

First thing I'd do with a new server is to stop and remove any unnecessary running services, users, etc, tighten permissions, install a firewall, lockdown ssh as much as possible, disable root login, make sure all software is up2date, configure apache/php/mysql to the versions you want to run and make decisions on how you want to run suexec, adjust php.ini, my.cnf for performance, setup backup tasks and backup to a remote server/nas/disksync/etc.; meanwhile I'd point a non-important domain to your nameservers and setup an account for it to test things out, run a query at dnsstuff.com or intodns.com to be sure everything is A-ok, and then after a few days of "burn in" making sure everything is stable and you don't lock yourself out or cause issues with the hardening, start moving real content over.