Afilias Managed DNS Frequently Asked Questions Frequently Asked

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Afilias Managed DNS Frequently Asked Questions Frequently Asked Afilias Managed DNS Frequently Asked Questions Frequently Asked Questions 1 Specific Questions about Afilias Managed DNS 2 1.1 What is the Afilias DNS network? . 2 1.2 How long has Afilias been working within the DNS market? . 2 1.3 What are the names of the Afilias name servers? . 2 1.4 How does my configuration get propagated to DNS and how long does it take? . 2 1.5 How can I confirm that changes I make to my domains are being resolved on the Afilias network?............................................. 2 1.6 For secondary DNS service, what happens if there is a failure when transferring the zone file from my primary server? . 2 1.7 How easy is it to move domains over from another DNS provider and will there be any downtime? . 3 1.8 What support does Afilias provide? . 3 1.9 Does the Afilias network support IPv6? . 3 1.10 What resource records does Afilias support? . 3 1.11 Can I do bulk changes? . 3 2 General DNS Questions 3 2.1 What is DNS? . 3 2.2 Where can I get more information about DNS? . 4 2.3 What is DNSSEC? . 4 2.4 When will DNSSEC be available? . 4 2.5 What is BIND? . 4 2.6 What is the difference between a domain and a zone? . 4 2.7 What is a \glue record"? . 4 2.8 What is the difference between Primary, Secondary, Master and Slave DNS? . 4 3 Questions about Security 5 3.1 What is a distributed denial of service attack, or DDoS? . 5 3.2 What is a \botnet"? . 5 3.3 What is spam? . 5 3.4 What is \phishing"? . 5 3.5 What is \pharming"? . 5 3.6 What is malware? . 5 3.7 What does the term \Fast Flux" refer to? . 6 4 Questions about Internet and DNS Administration 6 4.1 What is ICANN? . 6 4.2 What is SSAC? . 6 4.3 What is RSSAC? . 6 5 Questions about Site Certain 6 5.1 What is SiteCertain? . 6 5.2 How do I add a URL for SiteCertain Monitoring? . 7 5.3 How do I add an IP address to SiteCertain Monitoring? . 7 5.4 How many IP addresses can I add? . 7 5.5 How do I set up script monitoring? . 7 5.6 How will I be notified of a failover? . 7 Issue 3 c Afilias Limited 2009 1 Afilias Managed DNS Frequently Asked Questions 6 Questions About Billing 7 6.1 What are the wiring instructions for Afilias Managed DNS service? . 7 6.2 To whom should checks be made payable? . 7 6.3 Where should checks be sent? . 8 Issue 3 c Afilias Limited 2009 2 Afilias Managed DNS Frequently Asked Questions 1 Specific Questions about Afilias Managed DNS 1.1 What is the Afilias DNS network? Afilias manages a global network of dedicated high performance servers that provides supe- rior response times to all DNS lookups and queries. This network was developed to support all the top level domains (TLD, gTLD, ccTLD) managed by Afilias registry services. Afilias Managed DNS now provides premium DNS service for other customers on this network. 1.2 How long has Afilias been working within the DNS market? Afilias has been a leader in the DNS market since 2000 when it won the ICANN bid to provide new registry services for the .info top level domain (TLD). It developed its premium DNS network in 2005. 1.3 What are the names of the Afilias name servers? The name servers for Afilias Managed DNS are shown on the SOA screen of each primary domain configuration. They are: • a.service.afiliasdns.info • b.service.afiliasdns.org • c.service.afiliasdns.net • d.service.afiliasdns.com • e.service.afiliasdns.info • f.service.afiliasdns.net 1.4 How does my configuration get propagated to DNS and how long does it take? Your primary (master) DNS configuration is stored in a database. Whenever you make changes, the serial number is automatically incremented. This triggers a notify message that is sent to the Afilias network. An Afilias server then does a DNS zone transfer to copy your changes and distribute them across the Afilias DNS network. This process is completed within a few minutes. 1.5 How can I confirm that changes I make to my domains are being re- solved on the Afilias network? There are detailed examples in the User Guide of how to use dig and nslookup to verify your changes on the Afilias network and on the Internet. 1.6 For secondary DNS service, what happens if there is a failure when transferring the zone file from my primary server? There is currently no mechanism to deliver error messages on zone transfers (AXFR/IXFR) to the Afilias secondary service. You should run dig/nslookup (as shown in the Verification section of the User Guide) to confirm that the serial number of the zone on the Afilias network matches the serial on your primary server. If there is a mismatch, and you suspect the transfer has failed, you can send in a ticket using the Support screen on the web portal or call the Afilias Customer Service Center for further analysis of the problem. Issue 3 c Afilias Limited 2009 3 Afilias Managed DNS Frequently Asked Questions 1.7 How easy is it to move domains over from another DNS provider and will there be any downtime? If your domain is small, you can simply create it using the Afilias Managed DNS web portal. For a larger domain, if your current DNS provider has an export option, you can use this to create a file that can be imported. Once your primary domain is set up and you have verified it is resolving correctly on the Afilias network, you simply reconfigure the name servers on your other provider to point to the Afilias name servers. Providers generally take from 15 minutes to 1 day to complete this change. Some providers terminate DNS service as soon as name servers are configured to point off their network. You can increase the TTL on such providers in advance of making the change to mitigate downtime by increasing the time that caching DNS servers retain your domain information. Please see the Afilias Managed DNS User Manual for for more information. 1.8 What support does Afilias provide? Afilias maintains a Customer Service Center that is staffed 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. You can contact them by phone at the number shown on the top of every web portal screen. You can also send in a request via the Support page on the web portal. This request will create a \ticket" that will be handled by a support analyst who will reply by email. 1.9 Does the Afilias network support IPv6? Yes. The Afilias network is fully IPv6 compliant and can handle DNS queries from machines running IPv6 and allows you to add AAAA records to your zones. 1.10 What resource records does Afilias support? For secondary service, Afilias zone transfers from your primary DNS will support all records supported by BIND 9. For primary DNS service, the records you can enter are: A, AAAA, CNAME, MX, NS, TXT, PTR, SRV. Subsequent release will add support for other record types such as NAPTR, DNAME. 1.11 Can I do bulk changes? Via the API, you are able to define up to 10,000 secondary zones for creation, deletion, or update in a single operation. Via the API you may update as much of the content of a primary zone as you wish in a single operation. There is currently no API support for bulk management of more than one primary zone. 2 General DNS Questions 2.1 What is DNS? Computers on the Internet are identified by a unique numeric address, an IP address. The Domain Name System (DNS) makes using the Internet easier by allowing applications to use names instead of IP addresses. Instead of having to type 206.153.158.4 in a web browser, a person can simply type www.somewhere.info. The web browser will \resolve" the name and translate it to the necessary IP address by sending a query to a DNS server to do the lookup and translation. DNS also enables email addresses to be used with names instead of IP addresses. Issue 3 c Afilias Limited 2009 4 Afilias Managed DNS Frequently Asked Questions 2.2 Where can I get more information about DNS? There are many good books that provide in depth descriptions of DNS. There are also many good tutorials and other articles about DNS on the Internet. The ultimate definition of the DNS protocol and best practices for managing DNS is provided by the RFC publications of the IETF, the Internet standards body. 2.3 What is DNSSEC? DNSSEC (DNS Security Extensions) is an enhancement to the DNS protocol. It allows zone administrators such as the IANA to sign their zone files using public key cryptography. DNS users can then use these signatures to verify that the information they receive from DNS servers, such as the root name servers, is authentic. This prevents manipulation of the data during storage on servers and during transmission. 2.4 When will DNSSEC be available? DNSSEC will be available for primary zones in the second half of 2011. 2.5 What is BIND? BIND stands for Berkeley Internet Name Daemon. This was one of the first implementa- tions of a DNS server. It is a standard component of most Unix and Linux systems and runs as the process \named".
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