In zone editor interface it is possible to indicate the values of temporary parameters in weeks, days, hours, minutes and seconds, using corresponding letters: w — weeks, d — days, h — hours, m — minutes, s — seconds.

XXw — XX weeks, XXd — XX days, XXh — XX hours, XXm — XX minutes, XXs — XX seconds (where XX is a number).

In zone file time parameter will be indicated in seconds.

Record examples:
1890 — 1890 seconds;
2d5h — 2 days and 5 hours;
3h30s — 3 hours and 30 seconds.

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Time parameters Default TTL, TTL, Minimum TTLdefine TTL (Time-to-live), during which DNS servers (besides secondary ones) that obtained information about records from any DNS server, will cache it and communicate via requests of other DNS servers.

Format of record of time parameters is given in item "Record format of time parameters"

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SOA record (Start of Authority) or initial zone record indicates which server stores reference information about this domain, contains contact details of the person responsible for this zone, caching time parameters of zone information and interface of DNS servers.

Any zone shall contain a single SOA record for the name corresponding to the zone name.

Format of SOA record

Name [TTL] SOA data
name: zone name
TTL: see description of TTL parameter in item TTL
SOА: type of record
Data:

• Primary Name Server

  Primary DNS server for a specific zone is DNS server storing full initial information about this zone.

  Example of record:
  ns3-l2.nic.ru. ns3-l2.nic.ru. (permanent record).

• Hostmaster

  E-mail address of the person responsible for zone file contents.

  Record format of Hostmaster parameter:

  In the zone editor interface this field should indicate e-mail address (one) in a common e-mail address format.

  In zone file the address will be recorded in the Hostmaster standard format, i.e. with "@" symbol replaced with "." and with the dot at the end.

  Record example:
  dns.nic.ru.

• Serial number

  Serial number — is a number of zone file version. This number shall be a positive integer and increased each time the zone file is changed (see RFC1982). Increase of serial number shows to secondary servers that the zone has been changed and they should update the zone on their side.

  You may refrain from increasing this number manually, whereas it is increased automatically when saving zone file in zone file editor.

  If you change serial number so that it would remain unchanged after saving zone file or become lesser than it was before, secondary servers will consider the data unchanged and would be unable to read them at all from the primary server.

  Range of allowed values (for zone file editor): from 0 to 2147483646 inclusive (2 raised to the power of 31 minus 2.)

• Refresh

  Time parameter Refresh indicates, how often secondary server should request the primary server to know, whether Serial number of the zone has been increased, and correspondingly, whether it needs to be updated.

  Recommended value: from 1h to 6h.

  Range of allowed values: from 30m to 4w.

  Format of record of time parameters is given in item "Record format of time parameters"

• Retry

  Retry - indicates how long the secondary name server shall wait before reattempting the primary server request (with respect to changes of serial number of this zone) for zone description agreement, if the previous attempt failed;

  Recommended value: from 20m to 60m;

  Range of allowed values: from 5m to 2w, but not more than Refresh.

  Format of record of time parameters is given in item "Record format of time parameters"

• Expire

  Expire parameter indicates upper time limit during which the secondary server may use earlier data about the zone before they expire due to loss of update (for example, as a result of primary name server disconnection for a long time);

  Recommended value: from 1w to 1m;

  Range of allowed values: not less than Refresh parameter and not more than 1 year.

  Format of record of time parameters is given in item "Record format of time parameters"

Editing SOA record

To edit SOA record a domain name should be selected.

Then, select item "SOA and TTL".

Then, fill the required fields and click on "Apply".

Then, before loading the updated zone file its contents may be viewed, therefore enter "Resource records".

Click on link "Zone preview".

In the opened window check correctness of the updated data.

In this case SOA record has the following look:

domaintest.ru. IN SOA ns3-l2.nic.ru. dns.nic.ru.
(
2014012102 ; serial
1440 ; refresh
36000 ; retry
2592000 ; expire
600 ; minimum
)

If data are correct, the zone should be loaded. Therefore, close the window with the zone file contents and click on "Upload zone".

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A record enables to set up the correspondence between the host name in the domain and its IP address.

A record has the following format:
hostname [TTL] A IP address
hostname: domain name of the host (device) connected to the Internet, for which this record establishes the correspondence with its IP address.
TTL: see description of TTL parameter in item TTL
A: type of record
IP address: IP address of the host.

Please pay attention that all A records related to one and the same host name shall have the same TTL value.

Examples of A record for info.domaintest.ru host in zone file domaintest.ru:

or

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NS records (Name Server) feature DNS servers for this domain. The number of NS records in the zone file shall be exactly the same as the amount of DNS servers supporting the domain and include all DNS servers indicated in the domain. For the second-level domains these are DNS servers indicated in "nserver" fields in the domain details available through Whois service (https://www.nic.ru/whois/).

NS record has the following format:
domain_name [TTL] NS host_name
TTL: see description of TTL parameter in item TTL
NS: type of record
hostname: domain name of DNS server.

Examples of NS records in domain domaintest.ru. DNS servers supporting domain domaintest.ru and third-level domain test in domain domaintest.ru are specified (test.domaintest.ru).

For domain domaintest.ru:

In the event of subdomain delegation, for example, test.domaintest.ru:

Please pay attention that all NS records related to one and the same host name shall have the same TTL value.

If NS records have been made into the zone for delegation of a given domain name, no other types of records, except for glue-records, if they are needed (see RFC1034), shall be available for this domain name in this zone.

For example, in domaintest.ru zone domain vasja. domaintest.ru has been delegated:
vasja.domaintest.ru. NS ns1.vasja.domaintest.ru.
vasja.domaintest.ru. NS ns2. vasja.domaintest.ru.

In this case glue-records (A records with indication of IP addresses of DNS servers, on which domain is placed) of the following format are needed:
ns1.vasja.domaintest.ru. A 194.123.1.1
ns2.vasja.domaintest.ru. A 194.123.2.1

and the following types of records are inadmissible:
vasja.domaintest.ru. MX 10 mail.domaintest.ru.
www.vasja.domaintest.ru. A 194.123.1.3

These records shall be stored in zone of domain vasja.domaintest.ru.

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MX record (Mail Exchange) defines the mail server — the machine processing the mail for your domain.

MX record has the following format:
domain_name [TTL] MX mail server priority
TTL: see description of TTL parameter in item TTL
MX: type of record
priority: defines the priority value of the mail server. The lower the number is – the higher the priority of mail server (0 means the highest priority, 65535 — the lowest priority). Thus, mail server with the highest priority is the main one, and mail servers with lower priorities will be secondary and will be activated, if more prioritized servers for some reasons are unavailable or non-serviceable.
mail server: mail server name.

Examples of MX records in domain domaintest.ru.

or

Thus, mail server relay2.domaintest.ru is the main one, and relay3.domaintest.ru is the secondary mail server and will be activated, if relay2.domaintest.ru for some reasons is unavailable or non-serviceable.

Please pay attention that all MX records related to one domain name shall have the same TTL value, i.e. the example records may not exist simultaneously.

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CNAME record (Canonical Name) allows assigning mnemonic names to the host. Mnemonic names or aliases are widely spread for linking any function to the host, or just for name contraction.

Real name is sometimes called canonic.

If there is a CNAME record for the host, which contains its mnemonic names, other records for this host shall be referred to its real (canonic) name, but not to mnemonic. When DNS programs come across CNAME record, they stop their requests by the mnemonic name and switch to real name.

For example, the bellow structure is unacceptable:
ns1.domaintest.ru. CNAME ns.domaintest.ru.
office.domaintest.ru. NS ns1.domaintest.ru.

Besides, if a given name is used as an alias, it shall not bear any other records.

I.e, the bellow structure is unacceptable:
domain CNAME hostname
domain MX 10 mail server

Mnemonic names are useful, for example, in cases when the hostname changed and you wish to allow the users, who know the previous name, to obtain access to the host.

CHAME record has the following format:
mnemoname [TTL] CNAME hostname
Mnemoname: mnemonic host name
TTL: see description of TTL parameter in item TTL
MX: type of record
hostname: canonic hostname.

Examples of CNAME records for the host archive.domaintest.ru in domain domaintest.ru.:

or

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AAAA record enables to set up the correspondence between the host name in the domain and its IPv6 address.

AAAA record has the following format:
hostname [TTL] AAAA IPv6 address
hostname: domain name of the host (device) connected to the Internet, for which this record establishes the correspondence with its IPv6 address.
TTL: see description of TTL parameter in item TTL
АAAA: type of record
IPv6 address: IPv6 address of the host.

Please pay attention that all АAAA records related to one and the same host name shall have the same TTL value.

Examples of AAAA record for info.domaintest.ru host in zone file domaintest.ru:

or

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PTR records (Pointer) are used for resolving IP addresses into hostname. For each networking interface of the host PTR record should be created.

Note: If the provider dedicated to you several IP addresses from its network, any issues to records in reverse mapped zones should be referred to him.

PTR record has the following format:
Address [TTL] PTR hostname
address: resolved IP address of the host
TTL: see description of TTL parameter in item TTL
PTR: Type of record

Examples of PTR records

If the provider allocated to you IP address 194.85.61.42 in network 194.85.61.0/24, your host record (for example, mx.domaintest.ru) will be made by the provider in the reverse zone 61.85.194.in-addr.arpa. The record will have the following look:

or

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SRV records are used for searching the servers providing operation of any services under this domain.

More details of this type of records are available in RFC-2782.

SRV record has the following format:
_Service._Proto.Name [TTL] SRV Priority Weight Port Target
Service: service name (for example: ldap, kerberos, gc and others).
Proto: protocol through which the clients may switch to this service (for example: tcp, udp).
Name: domain name, in which this service is placed.
TTL: see description of TTL parameter in item TTL
SRV: Type of record
Priority: priority of this server. The lower the number is – the higher the priority (0 means the highest priority, 65535 — the lowest priority).
Weight: relative weight for the equally prioritized servers. Dedicated for balancing the load between the servers, for which equal priority is indicated.
Port: the port, on which the specified service on a given server is located.
Target: domain name of the server, providing this service.

Examples of SRV records

or

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TXT record is usually used for the text description of the domain name.

TXT record has the following format:
name [TTL] TXT text
name: domain or host name
TTL: see description of TTL parameter in item TTL
TXT: type of record
text: one or more text lines, each containing not more than 255 characters.
Examples of TXT record:

When adding or editing TXT record in interface of the zone file editor:

• If two or more text lines should be entered, they shall be divided by line separators.
• If entry line contains more than 255 characters, line is separated automatically after the 255-th character.
• No quotas (symbol ") need to be placed at the beginning and end of text line. In zone file the line will be automatically entered in standard TXT format, i.e. - with quotas.
• If text line contains quotas, they will be automatically screened.

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To view resource records a domain name should be selected.

Go to "Resource records" section

Then, the page will be displayed to indicate the list of all existing resource records.

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To add a new record, go to section "Resource records" of the zone and click on "Add new record".

Specify the requested parameters of the added record.

* The number and set of the parameters differ subject to the type of the added record.

After you add a new zone, you will need to upload zone file for the changes to take effect. Therefore, click on "Upload zone" on this page.

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DNS reserves special symbol - asterix (*) to be used in zone files as part of the mask. The asterix is compared with any number of tags in a name, except for the cases, when the name entry already exists in the database of DNS server.

The asterix (*) is allowed in the domain name and in host name, if host name is placed in the left part of the record. The asterix (*) is not allowed in domain name in left part of the NS record.

For example, in zone file domaintest.ru it is possible to make a record, in which "*.anydomain" will be specified as a name, where anydomain is any domain name in zone domaintest.ru (for example, domain1.domaintest.ru, domain2.domaintest.ru, etc.).

Examples of using masks:

Records mean that mail sent to somebody@domaintest.ru will be forwarded to mail server relay1.domaintest.ru, and mail sent to any other addresses in domain domaintest.ru, for example, somebody@mail.domaintest.ru or somebody@anyhost.domaintest.ru, will be sent to mail server relay2.domaintest.ru.

or

The record means that any possible host name in domain domaintest.ru (for example, "www.domaintest.ru", "mail.domaintest.ru", "anyname1.anyname2.domaintest.ru", etc.) will correspond to IP address 194.123.1.1.

Mask limitations:
Masks are not compared with domain names, for which data have already been defined.

For example:
*.domaintest.ru. MX 10 relay2.domaintest.ru
mail.domaintest.ru. MX 10 relay3.domaintest.ru
info.domaintest.ru. A 194.123.1.1
office.domaintest.ru. NS ns1.office.domaintest.ru

The mail, for example, addressed to somebody@mail.domaintest.ru will be sent to mail server relay3.domaintest.ru, but mail for somebody@anydomain.domaintest.ru will be sent to mail server relay2.domaintest.ru. Search of MX record for info.domaintest.ru will generate response, that MX record for this domain name does not exist. Mask may not be used, whereas, A record exists for this name. No mask will either be used for domain names within the zone of office.domaintest.ru, whereas masks are not applied beyond the delegation limits.

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