Editing
DNS
This document explains
What is DNS?
DNS can be considered something similar to a phone book. When you
move from one location to another, your name stays the same, but
your phone number may change. In order to point your name to the
new phone number, you must contact the telephone service provider
so they assign you the new phone number and update all directory
information to reflect you as pointing to this new phone number.
In this way, the IP number can be compared to a phone number: When
someone calls http://www.example.com/, your ISP looks at the DNS
server, and asks "how do I contact example.com?" The DNS
server responds: "It can be found at 198.105.232.4". As
the Internet understands it, this can be considered the phone number
for the server, which houses the http://www.example.com web site.
The DNS records for your domain are kept on your hosting server
in the place called DNS zone. When you register a domain by means
of the control panel, all DNS records are automatically created
for you, but in some rare cases you may need to add custom records
to your DNS zone. An example would be when you want all email to
be processed by an external mail server rather than by the built-in
mail system. However, such user intervention requires knowledge
of DNS configuration and clear understanding of what is to be done.
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How Do I Create Custom
DNS records?
To create a custom record to your DNS zone, do the following:
- Click Domains in your control panel home page.
- Select the domain if you have more than one.
- On the page that appears, click the Edit icon in the
DNS Configuration field:
- This link will take you to the DNS Configuration page:
On this page you can see
several blocks of DNS records. Some are built-in and non-removable;
others are user-defined and can be deleted. Built-in MX records
require special consideration: they can be removed by disabling
mailservices for this domain., but all e-mail resources, including
mailboxes, forwarders, and autoresponders will also be deleted.
The removal of H-Sphere 2.x email services was made possible
to enable the use of e-mail services provided by other mail
servers.
You can add any type of DNS records by clicking an appropriate
link. You will be asked to enter corresponding DNS data.
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Adding
Custom A Records
Normally, A records are used to map domain names and web server
IP's.
If you have selected A record, the following page appears:
Name: enter the string to map to the web server.
TTL: set how many seconds will elapse before the record
is refreshed in the DNS cache.
Data: enter the IP of the web server.
WARNING: Please pay attention to $ORIGIN when you add an A record.
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Adding
Custom MX Records
Custom MX records should be added when you want to use your external
mail servers to process your e-mail. To use your external servers
instead of those you get by default, you need to disable
mail service on the Domain Settings page of your control
panel. To use the default mail servers in addition to those
you get by default, you need to keep mail service enabled in the
control panel. The priority of the custom MX record will define
whether your external servers will act as secondary or primary.
For instance, if you set the priority of the custom MX record higher
than 10 (e.g. 11), your external mail server will be used as secondary.
If you set the priority of the custom MX record lower than 10 (e.g.
9), your external mail server will be used as primary. In the latter
case, your mail will be sent to your external mail server until
it goes down or becomes otherwise inaccessible. Then the default
mail server will take over.
When you enable mail service in the control panel, an MX record
is created automatically in the DNS zone. If mail service is disabled,
this built-in MX record remains in the DNS zone, and you can remove
it manually using the control panel interface.
If you have selected MX record, the following page appears:
Name: your local domain name. If you leave the Name
field blank, all mail will be redirected for the base zone.
Data: the priority of the record and mail domain name (not
the IP) mail will be forwarded to.
IMPORTANT: To add an MX record for the base domain, leave the Name
field empty.
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Adding Custom
CNAME Records
Finally, CNAME records are used to map aliases with domain names.
If you have selected CNAME record, the following page appears:
Name: The alias you give to the real host name.
TTL: set how many seconds will elapse before the record
is refreshed in the DNS cache.
Data: The real name of the host you create an alias to.
This must be an official host name. It cannot be an alias. A CNAME-record
should always point to an A-record to avoid circular references.
WARNING: Please pay attention to $ORIGIN when you add a
CNAME record.
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