DNS Manager

The main purpose of the Domain Name System (DNS) is to translate user-friendly names to numerical IP addresses. These names are translated with the utilization of DNS resource records. The DNS resource records are stored on a DNS name server. Using the DNS Manager section in the Control Panel, you can modify the following types: A records Using an A (Address) record you can associate a hostname with an IPv4 address. For example, if you have a server at your office and you need to name it office.my_domain.com, you can use an A record to do that. AAAA records You can add AAAA records to point a hostname to a specific IPv6 address. MX records MX (Mail eXchange) records are used to define where email messages for a given domain name will be routed to. It can be either a hostname under your domain name (e.g. mail.my_domain.com), or can be a name of a third-party mail server (e.g. mail.hotmail.com). You cannot add IP addresses as MX records. If you modify the MX records for your domain name, please make sure that the server you have defined as MX for your domain name is configured to accept email messages sent to your domain name. CNAME records The CNAME (Canonical NAME or Alias) records are similar to the A records. While you need to specify an IP address for the A record, for the CNAME record, you need to specify another hostname (for example user.my_domain.com). TXT records TXT (TeXT) records give you the option to associate some text with a host or other name.For example, the TXT record is used to define the SPF (Sender Policy Framework) information record which may be used to validate legitimate email sources for a domain. An example of an SPF record is: my_domain.com. IN TXT "v=spf1 a mx ~all" "v=" defines the version of SPF used. The "a" and "mx" strings specify the systems which are permitted to send messages for the domain. The "~all" string at the end specifies that the mechanisms listed are all that should be used for matching with a SOFTFAIL policy. SRV records SRV (SeRVice) records are more complex records which are used to define the hostname and the port for specific services. SRV records are added in the following form: _service._proto.name TTL class SRV priority weight port target The "service", "proto", and "name" strings define the symbolic name, transport protocol, and domain name of for which the record is valid. The "class" string defines the DNS class field (which is always IN). The "priority" string indicates the priority of the DNS record (lower value means higher priority), and the "weight" string shows the relative weight for records with the same priority. The "port" string can be either TCP, or UDP depending on the port on which the service works, and "target" shows the hostname of the machine providing the service. SRV records are used for services such as XMPP, Client SMTP Authorization, SIP, etc. Wildcard DNS records A wildcard DNS record is a record that will match requests for non-existing names. It is specified by using a "*" (asterisk symbol) as the leftmost label (part) of a domain name (e.g. *.my_domain.com).

You will not be able to change the nameservers of your domain name using the DNS Manager section of the Control Panel. You can change the nameservers only using the domain management interface provided by your domain registrar.

DNS records added via the DNS Manager section of the Control Panel take effect only when the domain name uses the DNS service of your hosting account. In order to apply changes to existing DNS records, you need to: Enter your Control Panel's DNS Manager section. Select the domain for which you modify the existing DNS records via the Show hostnames of drop-down menu from the Select a domain section.If you wish to modify the DNS records globally (for all domain names) for your hosting account, select the All domains in this account option for the Apply changes to setting. More details about this feature are available in our Applying DNS changes to all domains on the account article. Click on the Edit button () next to the record you wish to modify. At the bottom of the page will appear an Edit an existing record subsection where you can enter the new values there. Click on the Save button to save the changes.

DNS records added via the DNS Manager section of the Control Panel take effect only when the domain name uses the DNS service of your hosting account. In order to restore the default DNS configuration, you need to: Enter your Control Panel's DNS Manager section. Select the domain for which you wish to restore the default DNS configuration via the Show hostnames of drop-down menu from the Select a domain section.If you wish to restore the default DNS configuration globally for your hosting account (for all domain names), select the All domains in this account option for the Apply changes to setting. More details about this feature are available in our Applying DNS changes to all domains on the account article. Click on the Restore default configuration button. If you selected the All domains in this account option in the previous step, the button will be labeled Restore default configuration, all domains. You can use this feature when something goes wrong, or when you need to restore the default/original DNS configuration. It will remove all custom records you have created and will restore the default values for your domain name DNS zone.

DNS records added via the DNS Manager section of the Control Panel take effect only when the domain name uses the DNS service of your hosting account. To disable the DNS service for a single or all domains on your hosting account, you need to: Enter your Control Panel's DNS Manager section. Select the domain for which you wish to disable the DNS service via the Show hostnames of drop-down menu from the Select a domain section.If you wish to disable the DNS service globally for your hosting account (for all domain names), select the All domains in this account option for the Apply changes to setting. More details about this feature are available in our Applying DNS changes to all domains on the account article. Click on the Disable DNS service. If you selected the All domains in this account option in the previous step, the button will be labeled Disable DNS service for all domains. If the DNS service is disabled for a particular domain or all domains parked on your account, you can use the Enable DNS service or Enable DNS service for all domains button to re-enable it.

DNS records added via the DNS Manager section of the Control Panel take effect only when the domain name uses the DNS service of your hosting account. To add an A record, you should: Enter your Control Panel's DNS Manager section. Select the domain for which you wish to add an A record via the Show hostnames of drop-down menu from the Select a domain section.If you wish to add an A record globally for your hosting account (for all domain names), select the All domains in this account option for the Apply changes to setting. More details about this feature are available in our Applying DNS changes to all domains on the account article. At the bottom of the page, you will see an Add a new record form. Select A from the Type drop-down menu. Enter the name in the Subdomain field. If you need to point www.example.com to another IP address, you need to type www in the Subdomain field. To point your domain without the www prefix (example.com), you should leave the Subdomain field blank. In the IP field, enter the IP address of the server to which you want to point the A record. After applying all values, click on the Submit button.

DNS records added via the DNS Manager section of the Control Panel take effect only when the domain name uses the DNS service of your hosting account. To add an AAAA record, you should: Enter your Control Panel's DNS Manager section. Select the domain for which you wish to add an AAAA record via the Show hostnames of drop-down menu from the Select a domain section.If you wish to add an AAAA record globally for your hosting account (for all domain names), select the All domains in this account option for the Apply changes to setting. More details about this feature are available in our Applying DNS changes to all domains on the account article. At the bottom of the page, you will see an Add a new record form. Select AAAA from the Type drop-down menu. Enter the subdomain name in the Subdomain field. If you need to point www.example.com to another IPv6 address, you need to type www in the Subdomain field. To point your domain without the www prefix (example.com), you should leave the Subdomain field blank. In the IP field, enter the IPv6 address of the server to which you want to point the AAAA record. After applying all values, click on the Submit button.

DNS records added via the DNS Manager section of the Control Panel take effect only when the domain name uses the DNS service of your hosting account. To add a CAA record, you should: Enter your Control Panel's DNS Manager section. Select the domain for which you wish to add a CAA record via the Show hostnames of drop-down menu from the Select a domain section.If you wish to add a CAA record globally for your hosting account (for all domain names), select the All domains in this account option for the Apply changes to setting. More details about this feature are available in our Applying DNS changes to all domains on the account article. At the bottom of the page, you will see an Add a new record form. Select CAA from the Type drop-down menu. Enter the necessary values in the available fields. After applying all values, click on the Submit button.

DNS records added via the DNS Manager section of the Control Panel take effect only when the domain name uses the DNS service of your hosting account. To add a CNAME record, you should: Enter your Control Panel's DNS Manager section. Select the domain for which you wish to add a CNAME record via the Show hostnames of drop-down menu from the Select a domain section.If you wish to add a CNAME record globally for your hosting account (for all domain names), select the All domains in this account option for the Apply changes to setting. More details about this feature are available in our Applying DNS changes to all domains on the account article. At the bottom of the page, you will see an Add a new record field. Select CNAME from the Type drop-down menu. Enter the subdomain name in the Subdomain field. If you need to point www.example.com to another domain/host name, you need to type www in the Subdomain field. To point your domain without the www prefix (example.com), you should leave the Subdomain field blank. In the Target field, type the domain/host name of the server to which you want to point the CNAME record. After applying all values, click on the Submit button.In the above example, you can see the necessary values for pointing www.example.com to the blogger.com blogging service of Google.

DNS records added via the DNS Manager section of the Control Panel take effect only when the domain name uses the DNS service of your hosting account. To add an MX record, you should: Enter your Control Panel's DNS Manager section. Select the domain for which you wish to add an MX record via the Show hostnames of drop-down menu from the Select a domain section.If you wish to add an MX record globally for your hosting account (for all domain names), select the All domains in this account option for the Apply changes to setting. More details about this feature are available in our Applying DNS changes to all domains on the account article. At the bottom of the page, you will see an Add a new record field. Select MX from the Type drop-down menu. Leave the Subdomain field empty. In case the mail server to which you point the mail service accepts email messages for subdomains, and you want to be able to receive email messages at a subdomain, then type the name of the subdomain in the Subdomain field. In the Target field, you need to type the name of the mail host (server) to which you want to point the MX record. You cannot add an IP address in this field. If you have an IP address only, you should first create a separate A record for a hostname/subdomain (e.g. mail.example.com) pointing to the IP address of the mail server. Information on adding A records is available in our Adding A records article. After the A record for that hostname is added, you need to type that hostname/subdomain in the Target field. Type 0 in the Priority field. This is the highest priority. If you have other MX records and you want them to be with higher priority, then you can increase the priority value for this field, so that it is lower than the priority you applied for the other MX records. After applying all values, click on the Submit button.

DNS records added via the DNS Manager section of the Control Panel take effect only when the domain name uses the DNS service of your hosting account. To add a TXT record, you should: Enter your Control Panel's DNS Manager section. Select the domain for which you wish to add a TXT record via the Show hostnames of drop-down menu from the Select a domain section.If you wish to add a TXT record globally for your hosting account (for all domain names), select the All domains in this account option for the Apply changes to setting. More details about this feature are available in our Applying DNS changes to all domains on the account article. At the bottom of the page, you will see an Add a new record field. Select TXT from the Type drop-down menu. Enter the subdomain name in the Subdomain field for which you want the TXT record to be valid. If you need to add a TXT record for www.example.com, you need to type www in the Subdomain field. To add a TXT record for your naked (main) domain without the www prefix (example.com), you should leave the Subdomain field blank. Type the TXT record value in the Text field. After applying all values, click on the Submit button. You can find detailed instructions for adding SPF and SRV records in our Adding SPF records and Adding SRV records articles.

DNS records added via the DNS Manager section of the Control Panel take effect only when the domain name uses the DNS service of your hosting account. General info Sender Policy Framework (SPF) is a DNS-based system that allows domain administrators to list the servers that are allowed to send email for their domain. The main purpose of this system is to fight email forgeries on the Internet. A flaw in the SMTP protocol allows anyone on the Internet to use any email address/domain as a sender of the messages they send. This is very often exploited by spammers and virus-spreading botnets - they use real domains as senders to give credibility to their messages. If you add an SPF record for your domain, then all mail servers on the Internet that use SPF checks will know which mail server your messages should come from, and will block as spam messages that use your domain as a forged sender. Note that adding an SPF record in the DNS server for your domain is not generally meant to fight spam sent TO your domain - it is meant to instruct recipient mail servers which is the real sending server for your domain. A commonly used SPF record is:v=spf1 a mx ~all"v=" defines the version of SPF used. The "a" and "mx" strings specify the systems that are permitted to send messages for the domain. In this case, these would be the A and MX records of the domain - the servers that host the web and email services for the domain. The "~all" string at the end specifies that the mechanisms listed are all that should be used for matching. It also defines a SOFTFAIL policy. Detailed information about SPF (Sender Policy Framework) is available at http://www.open-spf.org/. Adding an SPF record through the SPF Protection tool The DNS Manager section of the hosting Control Panel allows you to add an SPF record for your domain with a single click. Just use the Enable button under Mail Protection section. This will automatically add the following SPF TXT record in the DNS records section:v=spf1 a mx include:SERVERNAME.smtp-spf.sureserver.com ~allWhere SERVERNAME would be the hostname of the particular server your hosting account is on. The SPF record above lists the following servers as allowed senders for your domain: the server on which your hosting account is on, the current web server of your domain, in case your domain is not pointed to our web hosting service, the current email server of your domain, in case your email service is not pointed to our email server. Removing the SPF protection by clicking the button Disable next to it would remove all existing SPF records for your domain. IMPORTANT: When using the SPF protection tool, you should make sure that you are sending messages only through our server, and not through the SMTP server of your ISP or any other server that is not listed in the SPF record. Otherwise, your messages might be marked as spam. If you are sending messages through other mail servers as well, make sure these servers are added to the SPF record (see below for manually adding/editing an SPF record). Adding an SPF record in the DNS Manager manually The hosting Control Panel's DNS Manager section allows you to add an SPF record manually. To add an SPF record, you need to: Enter your Control Panel's DNS Manager section. Select the domain for which you wish to add an SPF record via the Show hostnames of drop-down menu from the Select a domain section.If you wish to add an SPF record globally for your hosting account (for all domain names), select the All domains in this account option for the Apply changes to setting. More details about this feature are available in our Applying DNS changes to all domains on the account article. At the bottom of the page, you will see an Add a new record field. Select TXT from the Type drop-down menu. Enter the subdomain name in the Subdomain field for which you want the SPF record to be valid. If you need to add an SPF record for your main domain without the www prefix (example.com), you should leave the Subdomain field blank. As sometimes the IP address of your account (the A and MX record) may differ from the server IP address, we recommend that you add the following SPF record for our hosting environment: v=spf1 a mx include:SERVERNAME.smtp-spf.sureserver.com ~allRemember to replace SERVERNAME with the hostname of the server your account is on. For example, if your account is on server s433, the string should be "include:s433.smtp-spf.sureserver.com"If your account is on server299, the string should be "include:server299.smtp-spf.sureserver.com".The "include" mechanism in the SPF record will ensure that after any server IP changes, the SPF record will provide correct information about the servers allowed to send email for the particular domain.Type your SPF record in the Text field, and click on the Submit button.

DNS records added via the DNS Manager section of the Control Panel take effect only when the domain name uses the DNS service of your hosting account. To add an SRV record, you should: Enter your Control Panel's DNS Manager section. Select the domain for which you wish to add an SRV record via the Show hostnames of drop-down menu from the Select a domain section.If you wish to add an SRV record globally for your hosting account (for all domain names), select the All domains in this account option for the Apply changes to setting. More details about this feature are available in our Applying DNS changes to all domains on the account article. At the bottom of the page, you will see an Add a new record form. Select SRV from the Type drop-down menu. An example SRV record that you might need to add is the following: Record type: SRVService: _sipProtocol: _tlsPort: 443Weight: 1Priority: 100TTL: 3600Name: example-domain-name.comTarget: sip_service.target_domain_name.com To add the above record, you need to use the following SRV record values: Type: SRVSubdomain: _sip._tlsTarget: sip_service.target_domain_name.comPort: 443Priority: 100Weight: 1TTL: 3600 After all the SRV record values are entered, click on the Submit button.

DKIM provides a method for validating a domain name identity that is associated with a message through cryptographic authentication. It protects your mailboxes from sender forgery and helps with avoiding your messages being filtered as spam. It requires server-side signing of the messages and a DNS record. To enable the DKIM protection, you need to click on the Enable button in the Mail protection subsection of the Control Panel's DNS Manager. When you enable the DKIM protection, our mail server will generate a private key and start to sign your messages delivered to remote servers with it by adding a header to them. The The public key needs to be stored in a DNS record as it is used by the remote servers to verify the messages. When enabling the DKIM protection, the DNS record will be automatically created on our DNS servers. The DNS record will look like this (the actual key will be different for your account): If you are using third-party DNS servers, you need to replicate the DNS record on them. You can only enable or disable the DKIM protection for your whole hosting account. You can't do that per domain name. Disabling the DKIM protection via the the Disable button next to it would remove all automatically generated DKIM records for your domains. If you have disabled your DNS service, you will need to temporarily enable it to be able to manage the DKIM protection.

When making changes through the DNS Manager section of the Control Panel, you can select whether to apply these changes to a single domain or all domains parked to the account. You can do this through the Apply changes to select box. If you choose the All domains in this account option, the changes you make through the interface will be applied in the DNS configuration of the main and all domain names parked to the account. DNS records When adding a DNS record for All domains in this account, this DNS record will be added for all parked domains, no matter if a record of the same type exists for the same hostname (subdomain). If the target of the record is different from the existing record, it is possible the particular hostname to receive two records of the same type. For example, if you have an existing A record for test.your_parked.domain.com pointing to 1.2.3.4 and you add another A record for the test subdomain for All domains in this account pointing to 2.3.4.5, then test.your_parked.domain.com will end up with two A records - one pointing to 1.2.3.4 and another pointing to 2.3.4.5. Mail Delivery status When applying changes to the Mail delivery status for All domains in this account, the existing mail delivery status of the main and all parked domains will be overwritten with the new setting.

You may find it useful to export your DNS records when switching your DNS service provider. In order to export your existing DNS records, you need to: Enter your Control Panel's DNS Manager section. Select the domain for whose DNS records you wish to exportvia the Show hostnames of drop-down menu from the Select a domain section.If you wish export the DNS records globally for your hosting account (for all domain names), select the All domains in this account option for the Apply changes to setting. More details about this feature are available in our Applying DNS changes to all domains on the account article. Click on the Export DNS records button. Save the text file on your computer. The DNS records in the text file are in the TinyDNS format.

DNS records added via the DNS Manager section of the Control Panel take effect only when the domain name uses the DNS service of your hosting account. In order to point the mail service to another provider, you need to: Enter your Control Panel's DNS Manager section. Select the domain for which you wish point the mail service to another provider via the Show hostnames of drop-down menu from the Select a domain section.If you wish to point the mail service to another provider globally for your hosting account (for all domain names), select the All domains in this account option for the Apply changes to setting. More details about this feature are available in our Applying DNS changes to all domains on the account article. The MX record defines where the mail service of the domain name points to. By default, the DNS zone file on the server will contain an MX record that points your mail service to mail.example.com and an A record pointing the subdomain mail.example.com to the IP address of the server, where your account is located. In order to point the mail service to another mail service provider, you need to click on the Edit button next to the A record for mail.example.com hostname (mail subdomain) and set the IP address of the new mail service provider where you want to point the mail service of the domain name.Additional information on editing existing DNS records is available in our Modifying existing DNS records article. If there is no MX record present or you need to add additional MX records, please check our Adding MX records article. After pointing your mail service to another provider, you need to change the Mail delivery status setting. The Mail delivery status subsection of the Control Panel's DNS Manager section allows you to configure how our mail server will handle email messages sent to your domain name(s). The settings on the Mail delivery status screen should only be modified in case you are using external mail service provider for your domain name(s). There are three configuration options available:• We are Mail Server (default)When this option is selected, our mail server will accept email messages sent to your domain name and will deliver them to the mailboxes you have created on your account. This is the default configuration option.• We are backup MXWhen this option is selected, our mail server will act as a backup mail server, so it will accept email messages for your domain name and then queue them for delivery to your primary mail server as defined in your DNS configuration. Please make sure that you have your DNS records configured properly before selecting this option.When this option is selected, you will not be able to use our Webmail, nor will you be able to access your mailboxes which exist on our server. Also, you will not be able to use our mail server as outgoing/SMTP server.• External MX, External Mail ServerWhen this option is enabled, our mail server will not accept email messages for your domain name. This option should ONLY be used if you are using another mail server which is configured to handle email for your domain name. Basically, with this option enabled, the email service for your domain name at our mail server will be completely disabled. If any incoming email messages for your domain name reach our mail server, they will be rejected.

There are four DNS records that affect email delivery: The MX record; The A record of the subdomain that the MX record points to; The SPF record (a TXT record); The DKIM record (also a TXT record). The information that is contained in those records needs to be present in your DNS configuration in order to ensure the proper operation of your email. The records are created automatically on our servers. You can review the values of these DNS records on the DNS Manager page of the Control Panel of your hosting account. Records for incoming email MX record The most important type of DNS record for email is the MX type. MX records determine where email for the domain is going to be delivered. For example, the default MX record on our servers is similar to this: example.com. 14400 IN MX 0 mail.example.com. This tells mail servers that email for example.com (for instance, when a message is sent to [email protected]) should be delivered to mail.example.com. It is possible to have more than one MX record; for our servers, this is not necessary. A record for the mail host A mail server would then check the A record for mail.example.com: mail.example.com. 14400 IN A 192.252.159.138 The sending mail server knows to which IP address (192.252.159.138) to deliver the message this way. This IP address will be different for your hosting account, so you should get it from the DNS Manager page of the Control Panel. Records for outgoing email Basically, the records above are sufficient for incoming email delivery. However, there are a couple of other records, all implemented as TXT records, that are now widely used to reduce the amount of spam delivered over the Internet. They can help your outgoing email reach its destination without being blocked by spam filters. SPF record The first one is the SPF record. On our servers, the default SPF record looks something like this: example.com. 14400 IN TXT "v=spf1 a mx include:sXXX.smtp-spf.sureserver.com ~all" The sXXX.smtp-spf.sureserver.com part varies depending on the hosting server your account is on. This record tells other mail servers that legitimate email from example.com may come from the IP addresses that the A and MX records point to, as well as all servers in the SPF record for sXXX.smtp-spf.sureserver.com. This helps other servers detect spam that falsely claims to be sent from your domain. DKIM record The other TXT record that is needed for email sent from our servers is the DKIM (DomainKeys Identified Mail) record. Our servers sign outgoing messages using DKIM. This record is defined for the "dkim._domainkey" subdomain, and is similar to this: dkim._domainkey.example.com. 14400 IN TXT "v=DKIM1; k=rsa; p=1RxyKBp/fDaGUQw2bdMpbe3E9HgBXATjTH/QfSA3dqvjp3QEIM+cjHXwVNQpWp/2aTYCbJ1CADB6Tu/FBI4H03hmtY1Ab3xCMMoGvbqbB+GrgcfYbEI+kGxAJAPUqvQOSs03hIGQA13PLsVOQRCVdMBhwxS6BxjrAuQ1gCqjs/M7KstbABsXxLt4BCGrSY9KpavSQDtDtZNMRgBXvEqImaig" The DKIM record contains a cryptographic key that lets receiving servers ascertain that the message was indeed sent from your domain.