IMPORTANT: do not ignore this email: The hostname resolves to . It should resolve to X.X.X.X

Question

A newly setup cPanel system may have a message such as the following show the first time that you login to WHM.

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IMPORTANT: Do not ignore this email.

The hostname (hostname.server.com) resolves to . It should resolve to xx.xx.xx.xx. Please be sure to correct /etc/hosts as well as the 'A' entry in zone file for the domain.

Some are all of these problems can be caused by
/etc/resolv.conf being setup incorrectly. Please check this file if you
believe everything else is correct.

You may be able to automaticly correct this problem by using the
'Add an A entry for your hostname' under 'Dns Functions'
in your Web Host Manager
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Answer 1

Here are the steps that you should work through to solve this issue.

1. Follow the instructions that cPanel has provided by checking to see if you can solve this issue using WHM provided tools. Login to your server's WHM (not cPanel) by going to http://[YOUR SERVER IP]:2086 in your web browser.
 
2. You probably see the error now, go ahead and close it for now and scroll down the left hand Functions Menu until you find the heading 'DNS Functions'. Click on 'Add an A entry for your hostname'. WHM will try to analyze your hostname and then present you with a button to click that says Add the entry, go ahead and click on that. WHM should automatically try to add the relevant A record for your hostname to the DNS zone present on your system.

3. Go ahead and logout and then log back in to WHM to see if the message returns. Look to the top of WHM to see the "Logout(root)" link. Optional Tip: If you don't like logging into and then out of WHM while testing the fixes you can instead login to your server via SSH and whenever you are ready to test simply run the following command:

      root@myserver [~]# /scripts/ipcheck

      This command will send you an email immediately if your settings are still incorrect.
 
4. Hopefully that worked, but if not, we should go ahead and edit your /etc/hosts file just in case. Login to your system via SSH. Use your favorite text editor to make sure that your /etc/hosts file looks something like this.

      root@myserver [~]# cat /etc/hosts
      127.0.0.1              localhost
      xx.xx.xx.xx            server.domain.com server

      If you would like more information on the structure of the hosts file type 'man hosts' as the structure of this file is outside of the scope of this document.
 
5. Use your preferred method of checking for the message again. Has it returned? Are you sure that your server is using the proper resolvers? Make sure that your /etc/resolv.conf has the following within.

      nameserver 208.67.222.222
      nameserver 208.67.220.220