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Free Advanced DNS Management - Edit Zone Files

Advanced DNS Management is a service that allows you to edit the zone file of your domain name, so that you can point your domain name to a static ip address, create CName records and MX records. Most users will not utilize advanced DNS Management, and will simply delegate the authoritative name server to their hosting company by administering their NS records. and their hosting company will create the necessary zone files for their domain name to work. This is not to be confused with domain forwarding, which involves redirecting a domain name to another URL. Most domain name registrars do not provide you with Advanced DNS Management or domain name forwarding. We give you the choice to use our competitively priced hosting or your own hosting. It's your domain name and you have the choice of  how you use it.

Examples of Advanced DNS Management

• redirecting your domain name to a static ip assigned your office or home computer. This allows you to host your website, intranet or database on your local computer
• redirecting your domain name to a dedicated server located in a datacenter. This is a better alternative than using the same dedicated server as a name server and a web server because if you dedicated server fails, your name server will also fail to resolve. By having an external name server record that is on  a different server to your dedicated server, you can redirect your zone file records to an alternative server.
• more control to create subdomains and create addtional MX records. Most web hosting providers do not give you advanced domain name management and therefore,  you are limited to the number of subdomains, Cname, MX and A records that you can create and edit. (if you are hosting your site with a hosting company, your website must have a static ip for you to utilize advanced DNS management. eg. http://209.200.81.245/ is the static ip for www.passioncomputing.com.au . If your hosting company does not provide you with a static ip, then you will not be able to use Advanced DNS Management, you must use your hosting company's name servers. Most websites are hosted on shared ip addresses and you will need to ask your hosting provider if they provide you with a static ip address. ) All our web hosting plans come with the ability to edit zone files.
• Direct the mail associated with your domain name to a local office server, whilst still directing website traffic to the server hosted in your hosting company's datacenter
• Creating Cname records for google applications http://www.google.com/support/a/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=47283
• Creating Aname records and Cname records for Google's Adsense for Domains
• Creating a Cname record for iweb dot Mac website or MobileMe.  See how to create a CName record to redirect a domain name to a MobileMe website created using iweb.
• Pointing www A name record to an ip address, as instructed by some DIY website providers.

If you are simply looking to redirect your domain name to a URL, then read domain name forwarding, advanced DNS features are more suited to businesses that require access to the edit the zone files of their domain name. 

You cannot delegate your NS records to your hosting company's name servers and use Advanced DNS Management. You must delegate the name servers to

How to use advanced DNS Management: Read whole page!! Do not skip any steps.

1. Login to your account and activate advanced DNS management, by clicking on "Add services".

You will see the following screens.

Select the product and order 'hosting product' .

Screen 2: You must tick the box 'choose only DNS' and click 'order url forwarding/dns hosting'. (if you do not tick this box,  you will order the wrong product, and will need to then login and cancel domain name forwarding and keep dns hosting.)

Enter the A name records, C name records and MX records that you wish to change,

and complete the order by clicking the 'payment' link (this is on the top of the zone file editor - hard to see and often missed), and you will get the page below and click 'confirm order'. You must see a message that the order has been submitted. If you do not see this page, all the zone file edits you have made have not been saved and you may have to go back to "add services"

You must see a message that the order has been submitted or else you have not completed the order. If you have transferred your domain in, your zone file edits will not work until you change your name server records to those below.

Change your Name Server Records

Check or change your name server records to the records below. Note: if you have transferred a domain name in, you will need to change your Name Server records, before changes you have made to your zone files will work.. By default, all new domain name registrations have the name server records below. Accept with blind faith, that we are correct that your zone files will not work until you set the authoritative name servers to point to the name servers below. Most people struggle with this, because it doesn't make sense but what changing your NS records does, is tell the central registry and all the other name servers in the world, to look to the zone file edits that you just made to know where to point your domain name to.

WARNING: If you have a website or email associated with your domain name, these services will be affected by changing the name server records. Do Not change these records unless you know what you are doing !!

Wait. Do not visit your domain name for at least an hour after your name server records have been redelegated. If you are anxious about whether or not you have correctly set up domain name forwarding, log in and check the name server records fields are set correctly and go to 'zone files' are correctly entered.

Please visit updating name server records for more details on how to change or view your name server records. When using our advanced DNS, you will need to change the name server records to the primary and secondary name server records below. If you wnt to lower the time that it will take for your zone files to update across the internet, you need to modify the TTL value a few days before you change your name server records. TTL, or Time-to-Live, is the length of time for when a zone file is set to expire. This is usually expressed in seconds and the default setting is 86400 or 1 day. So, to minimize any disruption, you should login and reduced your TTL to 300 about 48 hours before the change of name servers.  This means that all the other servers on the internet will go back to the authoritative name servers every 5 minutes and check for updates to your domain records. A lower TTL means faster propogation and less disruption to your mail and website. Please remember to log back in and change the TTL value back to 86,400. The reason it is set to this value is to minimize the load on the authoritative name servers.

Editing Zone File : for various applications

Brief Instructions

The following instructions provide a brief overview of how to edit zone files and situations where editing a zone file may be appropriate. If you are not IT savvy, we do not recommend that you attempt to edit the zone files, especially if your site has a live website and email. Editing zone file will affect your website and email (if the ns records are pointed to the zone file you are editing), if not done correctly.

Editing your zone files

To do a simple direct of domain name to a static ip address, do the following:

Select from the pull down menu A, enter the ip address and click "Add", then enter into another field www  select A and then the ip address. This will create an a name record, so your domain name will work with a www and without a www. Below is an example of using advanced dns management to redirect a domain name to a static ip address. You must remember to click 'commit changes' and go back and check that your name server records are the same as the records listed below. (You need 2 A records, one with a "www" - this is so that you will be able to resolve your domain name both with and without the www)

1. 

2. To add a mail record

   Type mail, select MX and type in the ip address of your mail server. This is usually a different ip address from your website, or A name record.

   Then select MX, and add a preference number and your mail server. Your mail server must allow you to receive mail from this domain, or you still will not receive mail.

   The preference number can be a number from 0 to 100, the lowest number is the preferenced mail server.(if you are creating more than one MX record)

   Commit changes

   Until you commit the changes, your changes will not be saved.

Below is an example of what the zone file should look like with mail records in the zone file.

To add a CName Record

Type mail, select C and type in the url of your cname record. Commit changes. Until you commit the changes, your changes will not be saved.

Finally

Check your zone file records. For the example above, the zone file should look like,

Further Reading

http://download1.swsoft.com/HSPcomplete/3.3/release/doc/HSPC_RG/adding_dns__records_a_cname_mx_ns.htm

http://www.reachcustomersonline.com/content/2003/11/03/15.22.55/index.php