Customising a domain name’s DNS servers (Hosts)

Objective

DNS servers host the DNS configurations for domain names: DNS zones.

These DNS zones consist of technical information: DNS records. In standard usage, DNS records allow you to:

• Display your website with your domain name, using your hosting server’s IP address (DNS records of the types A and AAAA).
• Redirect the emails received at your domain name's email address(es) (DNS records of the type MX).
• Configure security/authentication information for your services (web hosting plan, email server, etc.) associated with your domain name (DNS records such as SPF, DKIM, DMARC, etc.).

For more information on these topics, see the following guides:

• Everything you need to know about DNS servers
• Everything you need to know about DNS zone
• How to edit an OVHcloud DNS zone

Depending on your needs, you can customise your OVHcloud domain name’s DNS servers using Hosts.

This guide explains how to customise your OVHcloud domain name’s DNS servers.

Requirements

• A domain name registered with OVHcloud
• Access to the OVHcloud Control Panel in the Web Cloud section

Instructions

1 – General rule

Some registries, such as Verisign (which manages the .com, .net extensions as well as other TLDs), use a technical model called host objects.
In some cases, this model requires that a specific record be created in advance for a DNS server before it can be used by a domain name.
Other registries do not require this record and directly accept the DNS server name.

In general, OVHcloud automatically creates the host objects when they are related to a domain name managed by OVHcloud.

Possible cases

The third row of the table above is the only scenario where manual creation in the "Hosts" tab is required.

2 - Retrieving the DNS servers currently used by your domain name

You can retrieve the DNS servers currently used by your domain name using the online DNS tool Zonemaster.

To do this, go to https://zonemaster.net, enter your domain name without www (domain.tld), then tick the Options button located just below the domain name entry form.

In the available options, click on the button Fetch NS from parent zone.

A result is displayed:

Retrieve the DNS servers information including all their associated IPv4 addresses (in the form of X.X.X.X where X is a number between 0 and 255) and IPv6 (other addresses that are not IPv4). You will need them for the rest of this guide.

In our example shown above, the domain.tld domain currently uses the following DNS servers:

• dnsX1.ovh.net associated with IPv4 203.0.113.0 and IPv6 2001:db8:1:1b00:203:0:113:0
• dnsX2.ovh.net associated with IPv4 203.0.113.1 and IPv6 2001:db8:1:1b00:203:0:113:1

If you need more information, please read our tutorial on the Zonemaster tool.

3 - Adding the host records

To do this, click on the tabs below to view the 4 steps.

4 - Create the A and AAAA DNS records corresponding to the custom DNS

You must create the A and AAAA records for the host names that you defined in the previous step. The A and AAAA records must target the destination IP address corresponding to the host name created earlier.

You can do this via the interface given by the service provider managing your domain name’s DNS configuration. There are two ways of doing this:

• If your domain name does not use an active DNS zone with OVHcloud: Contact the service provider managing it. Once you have made the required changes, please move on to the next step.
• Your domain name uses an active DNS zone at OVHcloud: Log in to your OVHcloud Control Panel then go to the Web Cloud section. In the left-hand column, click DNS zones, then select the domain name you used to create the hosts in step 3. Go to the DNS Zone tab, then click Add an entry. Select the entry of type A or AAAA depending on the type of associated IP you want to add. Follow the steps by entering the subdomain and the address IPv4 (A) or IPv6 (AAAA) then proceed until the addition has been validated. If necessary, please refer to our guide on Editing an OVHcloud DNS zone.

If we go back to our previous example, the GLUE records that we want to add (from the domain.tld domain name) are dns1.domain.tld and dns2.domain.tld. The goal is to replace the current DNS servers dnsX1.ovh.net and dnsX2.ovh.net.

As a result, the following records are added to the active DNS zone of the domain name domain.tld:

• An A DNS record for the subdomain dns1.domain.tld to the IP 203.0.113.0 (DNS server IPv4 dnsX1.ovh.net)
• An AAAA DNS record for the subdomain dns1.domain.tld to the IP 2001:db8:1:1b00:203:0:113:0 (DNS server IPv6 dnsX1.ovh.net)
• An A DNS record for the subdomain dns2.domain.tld to the IP 203.0.113.1 (DNS server IPv4 dnsX2.ovh.net)
• An AAAA DNS record for the subdomain dns2.domain.tld to the IP 2001:db8:1:1b00:203:0:113:1 (DNS server IPv6 dnsX2.ovh.net)

5 - Replacing the NS records in your domain name’s active DNS zone

For the customisation of DNS servers to be visible on the DNS network (by performing a Whois, a dig ns or through a DNS configuration tool), you will need to replace the NS records in your domain name’s active DNS zone.

You can do this via the interface given by the service provider managing your domain name’s DNS configuration. There are two possibilities:

• Your domain name does not use an active DNS zone at OVHcloud: Contact the service provider managing it to make the change.
• Your domain name uses an active DNS zone at OVHcloud: Log in to your OVHcloud Control Panel then go to the Web Cloud section. In the left-hand column, click DNS zones, then select the domain name for which you have customised the DNS servers. Go to the DNS Zone tab, then click Change in text format.

A window will appear with your DNS zone in text mode:

In this window, replace only in records of the type NS the names of the DNS servers with your own custom DNS server names. You also have to increment the first numeric value in the SOA line by "1". Once you have made your changes, click Next then Confirm.

The change will not be visible immediately in the OVHcloud Control Panel. Wait around 20 minutes, then log in to the OVHcloud Control Panel to ensure that your changes have been processed.

To get a better understanding of this step, let’s take a look at our example: The domain name domain.tld and its DNS zone in "text” mode, visible in the image above.

The following elements are observed:

• The first numeric value of the line SOA is as follows: 2023071700.
• There are two NS records for the domain name domain.tld.
• Records of type NS still target the two DNS servers dnsX1.ovh.net and dnsX2.ovh.net.

To continue the customisation of the DNS servers for the domain name domain.tld, you will need to:

• Increment the first numeric value of the SOA line by "1": 2023071701. (If the first numeric value was 2023071704, you would get the following result: 202307170**5).
• Replace the target dnsX1.ovh.net. with dns1.domain.tld. only for the line that starts with IN NS.
• Replace the target dnsX2.ovh.net. with dns2.domain.tld. only for the line that starts with IN NS.

Once the modifications are made, the result of our example will be the following:

$TTL 3600
@   IN SOA dnsX1.ovh.net. tech.ovh.net. (2023071701 86400 3600 3600000 300)
                  IN NS     dns1.domain.tld.
                  IN NS     dns2.domain.tld.

For the domain name domain.tld, the DNS servers displayed after the DNS modification and propagation have been processed are dns1.domain.tld. and dns2.domain.tld..

If necessary, please refer to our guide on editing an OVHcloud DNS zone.

6 - Modifying your domain name’s DNS servers

You will need to modify your domain name’s DNS servers by replacing the old DNS servers with the custom DNS servers you have created.

To do this, log in to your OVHcloud Control Panel, then go to the Web Cloud section. In the left-hand column, click Domain names, then select the domain name for which you want to customise the DNS servers.

Go to the DNS servers tab, then click Modify DNS servers. Then replace your current DNS servers with those you would like to use as custom DNS servers.

Finalise the steps and, if necessary, refer to the instructions set out in our documentation "Modifying an OVHcloud domain name’s DNS servers”.

In our example of customising the DNS servers for the domain name domain.tld, we replace the DNS server dnsX1.ovh.net with dns1.domain.tld and the DNS server dnsX2.ovh.net with dns2.domain.tld, then wait for the DNS propagation to propagate.

Go further

General information on OVHcloud DNS servers

Edit an OVHcloud DNS zone

For specialised services (SEO, development, etc.), contact OVHcloud partners.

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