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The first step to registering a new domain name, is finding out what is available.
You can do that from any of the registrar's sites via their "whois" utilities. The domain registrars are the sites/companies that are responsible for keeping track of who has what domains, and billing people for them. Here's a list of some common registrars:You'll also need to register the domain with one of them. In the process of doing so, you'll need to give them "name server addresses". Our name server addresses are:
- Network Solutions Offering domains for $35
- Register.com Offering domains for $35
- godaddy.com Offering domains for $8.95
Once it's registered, you can add your domain to Public-DNS .
- dns1.public-dns.net 216.226.141.40
- dns2.public-dns.net 216.226.141.42
- dns3.public-dns.net 216.226.141.43
To add a domain to Public-DNS: Go to http://www.public-dns.org/signup.html,
Login with your E-mail Address and password,
Click "Add Domain"
Enter your domain name. If we are going to just be doing secondaries for you, select "public-dns is a zone slave" from the drop down menu, otherwise select "public-dns is zone master". If you don't know which it should be, you're probably safe to go with "public-dns is zone master". If you want, you can check the FAQ question on the difference between primaries and secondaries.
Click Add.
If you added it as a secondary, you will also need to provide the IP address of your master name server.
Your domain will then be added to the "Pending Domains" area. You can view the domains you have pending for addition by clicking the "List Pending Domains" link. Your domain will be automatically checked every 15 minutes to see if it's valid, and the information in Pending Domains will be updated.
For a domain to be valid, the internet's root name servers must point it's NS records to our name servers (dns1.public-dns.net, dns2.public-dns.net, and dns3.public-dns.net).
You will be e-mailed upon any changes to it's status. If the domain sits in the Pending queue for more than one week, it will automatically be removed. You may re-add it at any time to have it checked again.
Our current authentication system requires that cookies be enabled. It will still allow you to login with cookies disabled, but you won't get past the page you logged into.
Please make sure you have cookies enabled. There have been several cases where the users browser also had to be restarted (exit the web browser, and start it back up). If you are sure cookies are working correctly on your browser and you continue to get that error, please contact our support team at:
Contact Us
Inactive logins (logins not associated with any active domains) will automatically be removed after 30 days on inactivity. Users who have added domains will need to remove those domains from our service before the login can be removed.
I don't have a login for Public-DNS
- Go to http://www.public-dns.org/signup.html
I forgot my Public-DNS login or password- Your Login Id is your e-mail address.
- Forgot Password Click Here
Login to public-dns with your old email address / LoginID. Click on the e-mail address on the toolbar in the top right hand corner. That will take you to a page where you can update your password and update your e-mail address. Or you can just Click Here
Generally, domain names are hosted on more than one name server. Hosted meaning the name to IP address mappings are stored on those servers... don't confuse this with web site hosting, that's a separate service entirely. DNS points the names to IP addresses, where a web site, or ftp, or e-mail server might be sitting.
When a domain name is on multiple servers, one of the servers acts as a "Primary" or "Master" server. The other servers are then called "Slaves" or "Secondary" servers.
The Primary server holds all the configuration information for the domain. Whenever changes need made, they are only made to the Primary server.
The Slave's pull information about the records off of the Primary server, keeping their records up to date.
To the rest of the world, they look and act identically. It's just a matter of what server holds all the configuration data.
If Public-DNS just does secondaries for a domain, then someone else must have a master server configured out there with all the records for us to pull the information off of.
"A" for Address.
An "A" record is a DNS record that points a domain name (like joe.foo.bar.com.) to an ip address (like 192.168.0.78).
ex.
joe.foo.bar.com. A 192.168.0.78
"MX" for Mail eXchanger
An "MX" record is a DNS record that defines the domain name (like mail.foo.bar.com.) that mail should go to for a domain (like bar.com).
ex.
bar.com. MX 10 mail.foo.bar.com.
bar.com. MX 20 backup.foo.bar.com.
would send all mail going to addresses@bar.com to the mail server mail.foo.bar.com unless it is unavailable, then it would try sending it to backup.foo.bar.com because backup.foo.bar.com has a higher preference (20) than mail.foo.bar.com (10). The lower the number in the preference, the higher the priority that server has.
"CNAME" for Canonical Name
A CNAME record is a DNS record that points a domain name (like ftp.foo.bar.) to another domain name (like www.foo.bar.). It allows you to make aliases from one domain record to another. You can also cross over domains by pointing a record (like ftp.foo.bar.) to some other domain (like ftp.domain.com.).
Important to note though, the records that CNAME's point to MUST be "A" records.
ex.
ftp.foo.bar. CNAME ftp.domain.com.
"NS" for Name Server
An NS record is a DNS record that tells the DNS servers in the world what DNS servers are authoritative for a domain. If Public-DNS is the master name server, generally all that needs listed is:yourdomain.com. NS dns1.public-dns.net. yourdomain.com. NS dns2.public-dns.net. yourdomain.com. NS dns3.public-dns.net.There are other uses, such as delegation of subdomains, but those are outside the scope of this FAQ. If you need them, you'll likely already know what they are. The above records should be appropriate for about 98% of the domains Public-DNS is doing primary DNS for.
"TXT" for TeXT
A TXT record is a DNS record that enables you to point a domain record (like notes.foo.bar.com.) to any piece of text (under 255 characters) that you want (like "this domain is owned by my company, bar.com")
ex.
notes.foo.bar. TXT "This domain is owned by my company, bar.com"
"HINFO" for Host INFO
An HINFO record is a DNS record that enables you to point a domain record (like printer.foo.bar.com.) to information about a host. Their are two information fields, both of max length of 255 characters, and you can put whatever you want in them. It's like the TXT records, but has an extra field, and was developed for different reasons (originally, there were no MX records, so HINFO records were used to determine where someone's mail server was at).
ex.
printer.foo.bar.com. HINFO "printer service" "port 257"
URL Forwarding needs a zone record pointing to our redirect server (redirect.public-dns.com). The appropriate record would be a CNAME, like:
yourdomain.com. CNAME redirect.public-dns.org.
The problems lies in the limits of dns zones. When you add a zone, like "yourdomain.com", there MUST be an A record for "yourdomain.com".
CNAME records are not allowed to be added if a duplicate A record exists.
So, we're unable to provide a URL forwarder for the base record for your zone.
You can, however, add as many subdomain URL forwarder records as you like (ex. www.yourdomain.com, ftp.yourdomain.com, mysite.yourdomain.com, etc).
There are other records type beyond what Public-DNS allows you to administer. At this time, Public-DNS doesn't support them. If you need to add some other type of record, please let us know. At the time Public-DNS was implemented, the types Public-DNS supports covered all the records we have ever had added to domains on our servers (no one has ever requested any other types of records). So, if you need support for some other type, let us know and I'm sure we'll be able to work something out, or extend Public-DNS's support.
Mail setup entails a lot of pieces working together to function. DNS is one of the pieces that needs to be setup correctly.
In DNS, MX records are the ones that take care of e-mail. MX stands for Mail eXchanger.
To setup an MX record (assuming your domain was "bar.com"):go into Public-DNSMX records also have a "preferance" field. The preferance field allows you to set up multiple mail servers to receive e-mail, and give each a preferance. For example, you could have the following:
add a new record of type "A" for your domain.
the "record" field should say something like "mail.bar.com.", and the ip address it points to should be the IP address of your mail server, or the mail server that will be handling mail for your domain.
eg. mail.bar.com. A 123.123.123.45
Now add a new record of type "MX" for your domain.
If you domain was "bar.com" and you want to set up DNS to handle e-mail addresses like "foo@bar.com" or "bob@bar.com", set the "record" field to your domain (like "bar.com."), and the "value" field to the name you used for the "A" record you just set up.
eg. bar.com. MX 10 mail.bar.com.bar.com. MX 10 mail1.bar.com. bar.com. MX 20 mail2.bar.com. bar.com. MX 30 smtp.purifieddata.net.Mail would then be sent to mail1.bar.com by default. If mail1.bar.com was down, mail would then go to mail2.bar.com, unless it was also down, then it would go to smtp.purifieddata.net. If all three mail servers were down, mail would bounce back to the sender.
To modify a domain, go into Public-DNS ,
Click on "List All Domains", select the domain you would like to modify from the list
You will then be looking at all the zone records for the domain.
You can use any of the edit, add record, or delete links to modify records in the domain.
To delete a domain, go into Public-DNS ,
Click on "List All Domains",
Find the Domain you want to delete and click the link on the right that say "Delete",
You will be prompted to confirm the deletion of the domain.
Select "Yes" if you want to delete it, or select "No" to return to the main Public-DNS menu.
To add a domain as a secondary, select "Add Domain" from inside Public-DNS.
Enter the domain you would like to add, as the type select "public-dns is a zone slave", and click "Add Domain"
You will then be prompted for the Master IP address. This should be the IP address of the master domain server that Public-DNS will be pulling DNS configuration information from for this domain. This must be an IP address, not a domain name
Your domain will then be added to the "Pending Domains" area. You can view the domains you have pending for addition by clicking the "List Pending Domains" link. Your domain will be automatically checked every 15 minutes to see if it's valid, and the information in Pending Domains will be updated.
For a domain to be valid, the internet's root name servers must point it's NS records to our name servers (dns1.public-dns.net, dns2.public-dns.net, and dns3.public-dns.net).
You will be e-mailed upon any changes to it's status. If the domain sits in the Pending queue for more than one week, it will automatically be removed. You may re-add it at any time to have it checked again.
To modify a host entry, select your domain from "List All Domains".
Find the host entry you would like to edit in the domain listing, and click edit next to it.
You can then change the values that show up in the "Edit Record" box.
To enable those changes, just click the "Modify" button. To cancel the changes, click the "Cancel" link.
Changes to records will be effective within 15 minutes.
To delete a host entry, select your domain from "List All Domains".
Find the host entry you would like to delete in the domain listing, and click "Delete" next to it.
A box will come up with information on that entry.
You need to either click "Delete" or "Cancel". Delete will actually delete the record from your domain. Cancel will go back to the domain listing.
When a new domain is added to Public-DNS, it enters a Pending Domains holding area. From Public-DNS, you can click on the "List Pending Domains" link to verify the domain entered that area.
When a domain enters teh Pending Domains area, and upon any status changes to that pending domain, you will be e-mailed. Each domain is automatically checked against the root name servers to be sure it belongs on Public-DNS.org (name servers dns1.public-dns.net, dns2.public-dns.net, and dns3.public-dns.net).
After a domain has been verified, it is added to your list of available domains, and you can begin administering your domain. Your domain will become active within 30 minutes from the time it is added to your list of available domains. After that, any updates you make to the domain will be live within 15 minutes of when you make them.
Beyond that, there are many tools online that you can use to verify domain resolution is working. The programs "dig", "host", and "nslookup", distributed with BIND (the Berkeley Internet Name Domain), are some good places to start. There are also standalone clones of these, and ports to other operating systems. If you want to verify name resolution, please look into these tools, or similar tools, and their documentation.
Modifications to domains in Public-DNS will take effect within 15 minutes.
When you add, modify, or delete a record, the Public-DNS listing for the domain will show the text [modified] next to it's name. Every 15 minutes all domains are checked for changes, and those with changes are updated. Once the domain is updated, the [modified]text will go away and the changes you made will be active.
Beyond that, there are many tools online that you can use to verify domain resolution is working. The programs "dig", "host", and "nslookup", distributed with BIND (the Berkeley Internet Name Domain), are some good places to start. There are also standalone clones of these, and ports to other operating systems. If you want to verify name resolution, please look into these tools, or similar tools, and their documentation.
When adding a brand new domain to Public-DNS, some verification steps are taken to assure that it belongs on the Public-DNS name servers. After verification has been successful, the domain will be added to your list of available domains. Domains pending verification are checked against the root name servers every 15 minutes, and any status changes will automatically be sent to your email address.
Once it has been verified, it will be active on our name servers within 30 minutes.
When adding or modifying DNS records on an existing domain, they will update on our name servers within 15 minutes. You'll see the text [modified] disappear from your dns record when this takes place.
Domain names may take some time to propagate throughout the internet. Propagation throughout the internet is dependent upon each DNS server on the net. If a DNS server on someone else's network has your domain name cached in it's server (this happens whenever the domain lookup is done from their server by any of their customers) then it will have to expire before it pulls the fresh information from our name servers again. These update, and expire times are all defined in the SOA and TTL values for your domain, and are denoted as a number of seconds.
Simply add your domain to public-dns.org first.
When your domain is added to public-dns.org, it will site in our pending queue, but a temporary entry will be created in our live dns servers for your domain. Then, go make the change with your registrar, and they'll be able to verify the domain is on our name servers.
Once that move has taken place, public-dns.org will automatically move your domain from pending to active, and you will be able to edit your zone on public-dns.org.
We are currently working on getting our name servers accepted by the DK Hostmaster. Unfortunately, it isn't a quick process. We currently don't have an estimate on when this will be completed, and judging by their "Rules for Registration, Administration and Conflict Resolution regarding Domain Names under Top Level Domain .dk", there is a chance we will not be able to reach approval due to political reasons.
We will post information to our Server Status page (accessable via the link at the top of every page) when this has been completed.