Skip to content

Managing a Domain

Once you've obtained a domain, you'll occasionally need to log into your registrar to do routine tasks.

Basics

For domains you plan to use for a long time, you probably want to enable auto-renewal. Most registrars will email you a month or so before the domain is set to renew either way, but this way you are less likely to lose your domain from ignoring/missing an email.

Be sure that your billing information remains up to date. If a domain expires it enters a short grace period where you can still reclaim it, but eventually will be available for others to purchase. If you lose a domain you may not be able to get it back, especially if you aren't willing to pay the new owner for it.

DNS

The most common reason to log into your registrar's site will be to manage DNS records.

For the most part, this guide and others you may follow will give specific instructions like "Create a TXT record named example.yourdomain.com with value "39702a4307498bb92e038a" and set the TTL to 600 seconds. While you can probably follow those steps without a full understanding of what they mean, this guide aims to demystify what

DNS, or the Domain Name Service, is the phonebook of the web. When you enter https://www.example.com into the browser, a DNS request checks what server to route the request to.

You can control DNS records for your domain (sometimes denoted .yourname.com or @.yourname.com) as well as any subdomains you wish to create. Subdomains are free and can be used to route different applications or pages to different servers without registering additional domains.

The most common kinds of DNS records are:

  • A: A records point a domain or subdomain to an IP address. If you decide to host a dynamic web application, the section Configuring your Server: Configuring DNS has an example of configuring an A record.
  • AAAA records are similar to A records but for pointing a domain name an an IPv6 address.
  • CNAME records allow you to point one subdomain to another, for example you could point myapp.example.com at myapp.github.io. This is addressed in more detail in Static Hosting.

You'll also sometimes be asked to create records like TXT records to verify your domain, MX records if you set up your own email, and half a dozen more less commonly used record types.

In addition to the type, each record consists of:

  • an optional subdomain, the sub in sub.example.com
  • a TTL, the number of seconds a record should be cached; in practice many systems will cache longer than this, but in general it is OK to leave as-is unless you have a good reason to modify it
  • a value, typically the IP address or domain name a record should resolve to
  • TXT records will often have unique non-domain/IP values. You may be asked to create these when setting up third party services that need to verify your domain.
  • most registrars (like Porkbun) will also give you a notes field to document why things are set the way they are

Registrar Security

Migrating to a New Registrar

You are not locked into your choice of registar, it is possible to migrate your registration and DNS records to another registrar that offers a better price or features.

  1. Copy DNS settings
  2. Unlock the domain
  3. Request a transfer code from the old registrar
  4. Initiate the transfer from the new registrar
  5. Confirm the transfer request
  6. Ensure new DNS is set