Domain name & DNS FAQ

Follow these steps:

1. Go to the OVHcloud website.
2. On the displayed page and in the designated field, enter the domain name you wish to reserve (e.g., domain.tld), then click the Search button.
3. On the new page that appears, our interface will indicate whether the chosen domain name is available for purchase. If it is already reserved with the syntax you entered, modify it and initiate a new availability search.
4. Once you find an available domain name, click the Buy button, then click the Continue Order button in the right column.
5. Select any additional options or services you wish to subscribe to alongside your domain name, then click Next until the order process prompts you to authenticate or create an OVHcloud customer account.
6. Once authenticated with your OVHcloud customer account, you can customise the contact information (holder/registrant, administrator, technical) for your domain name. Click the Continue button to access the order summary.
7. On the Order Summary page and if necessary, you can modify the DNS configuration that will apply to your domain name by clicking the Modify Configuration link. Once your changes are complete, click the Pay button to proceed to the final step of your order.

Pay for your order to initiate the reservation of your domain name and the installation of the services and options you have subscribed to.

A few moments later, you will receive a confirmation email for your order. You can then manage your domain name by logging into your OVHcloud Control Panel.

Do not hesitate to create a support ticket from the Help Centre if needed.

Purchasing a domain name on the secondary market follows the same process as subscribing to a domain name.

Follow these steps:

1. Go to the OVHcloud website.
2. On the displayed page and in the designated field, enter the domain name you wish to reserve (e.g., domain.tld), then click the Search button.
3. On the new page that appears, our interface will indicate whether the chosen domain name is available for purchase. If it is already reserved with the syntax you entered, modify it and initiate a new availability search.
4. Once you find an available domain name, click the Buy button, then click the Continue Order button in the right column.
5. Select any additional options or services you wish to subscribe to alongside your domain name, then click Next until the order process prompts you to authenticate or create an OVHcloud customer account.
6. Once authenticated with your OVHcloud customer account, you can customise the contact information (holder/registrant, administrator, technical) for your domain name. Click the Continue button to access the order summary.
7. On the Order Summary page and if necessary, you can modify the DNS configuration that will apply to your domain name by clicking the Modify Configuration link. Once your changes are complete, click the Pay button to proceed to the final step of your order.

Pay for your order to initiate the reservation of your domain name and the installation of the services and options you have subscribed to.

A few moments later, you will receive a confirmation email for your order. You can then manage your domain name by logging into your OVHcloud Control Panel.

Do not hesitate to create a support ticket from the Help Centre if needed.

To do this, you can perform a WHOIS query to find out where your domain name is registered and to verify that you are indeed declared as the holder of the domain name.

Each registrar (such as OVHcloud) has the option to choose how to display information related to a domain name in the WHOIS.

Once the WHOIS query is performed, look in the result for at least one of the following lines:

• Domain Name: ovhcloud.com
• Registrar WHOIS Server: whois.ovh.com
• Registrar URL: https://ovh.com
• Registrar: OVH sas

If you see at least one of these lines in the result, your domain name is indeed registered with OVHcloud.

Otherwise, your domain name is registered with another registrar. Then look for the lines related to the Registrar to identify the registrar where your domain name is registered.

The fastest solution is to perform a WHOIS query on the domain name. Once the query is performed, look in the result for the line corresponding to the expiration date (e.g., Expiry Date: 2025-09-22T08:00:00Z, Registry Expiry Date: 2025-09-22T08:00:00Z, etc.).

If your domain name is registered with OVHcloud, click the tabs below to view each of the 2 steps in succession.

The annual expiration date of a domain name (e.g., September 24) is pre-set based on the registration (creation) date of the domain name.

Typically, the annual expiration date of a domain name is the same as the date you registered the domain name.

Therefore, it is not possible to change the annual expiration date of a domain name.

Once a domain name is subscribed, it is registered based on the characters you defined during your order. The registration is processed by the registry for your domain name's extension (e.g., the .com registry), and reservation fees apply on the side of the registrar (such as OVHcloud).

A domain name is a unique address on the Internet, for example: ovhcloud.com. Every change to this name, whether a character or an extension (.com, .fr, .net, etc.), makes it a completely different domain name.

Therefore, if you made a typo during your order, it cannot be modified or corrected. You will need to order a new domain name independently of the previous one (provided the new desired spelling is not already reserved by someone else).

Domain names are considered custom products because they are registered specifically for a registrant and blocked for others from the moment of the order. This is why, once registered, they cannot be refunded.

Once a domain name is subscribed, it is registered based on the characters you defined during your order. The registration is processed by the registry for your domain name's extension (e.g., the .com registry), and reservation fees apply on the side of the registrar (such as OVHcloud).

A domain name is a unique address on the Internet, for example: ovhcloud.com. Every change to this name, whether a character or an extension (.com, .fr, .net, etc.), makes it a completely different domain name.

Therefore, if you made a typo during your order, it cannot be modified or corrected. You will need to order a new domain name independently of the previous one (provided the new desired spelling is not already reserved by someone else).

Domain names are considered custom products because they are registered specifically for a registrant and blocked for others from the moment of the order. This is why, once registered, they cannot be refunded.

Click the tabs below to view each of the 3 steps in succession.

First, if you have doubts about the legitimacy of the received email, consult our guide "Beware of scams - recognising fraudulent emails and phishing".

According to a directive from the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) dated 01/09/2014, domain name registrars (e.g., OVHcloud) are required to verify the validity of the contact details of domain name registrants/holders. OVHcloud then sends an email to the registrant/holder of the domain name at the contact email address declared with OVHcloud.

You will receive this email when you perform one of the following actions:

• Registration of a new domain name.
• Transfer of a domain name.
• Modification of the contact details associated with your domain name.

This email contains a link to quickly verify your contact details as the legal holder/registrant of the domain name.

Important: This verification must be completed within 15 days. If not, the domain name will be technically suspended. It will remain contractually under your name but will no longer be accessible on the Internet. An error message will appear for visitors to your website.

You may receive the following emails during the first 15 days:

• Day 0: Immediately after ordering the domain name or modifying its contact details, you (or the person registered as the holder/registrant of the domain name) will receive the first email with a verification link.
• Days 4, 9, and 13 (reminder emails): If you have not yet verified the domain name, you will receive the email again.
• Day 14: If you still have not verified the domain name, the email is sent once more. Additionally, an email is also sent to the administrator/registrant's email address to inform them that their contact details have not been confirmed.
• Day 15: If the holder/registrant of the domain name has not yet responded, we send an email to the domain name administrator to inform them of the situation and the deactivation of the domain name.

Beyond these 15 days, the system sends additional emails (up to 9 emails) before deleting your domain name. This deletion will occur 60 days after Day 0.

If you did not receive the validation email for your domain name's holder, check the following points:

1. The email address declared for the domain name holder is valid and operational.
2. The validation email is not in your spam/junk folder.

After confirming the two points above, if you still cannot retrieve the holder validation email, we recommend opening a support ticket from the Help Centre to request the email to be resent.

Initially, domain names could only contain specific ASCII characters (such as the 26 Latin alphabet letters). An Internationalized Domain Name (IDN) allows the use of special or accented characters, as well as other alphabets (e.g., Cyrillic).

With OVHcloud, it is entirely possible to order IDNs and use them as regular domain names with our other services (web hosting, DNS zones, etc.¹).

Once subscribed, IDNs appear in your OVHcloud Control Panel in the xn-- format.

Even though your domain name is displayed in internationalized notation (IDN) in your OVHcloud Control Panel, it will function and display normally elsewhere. Your website address will appear as requested. Your email addresses will also display as intended to your contacts.

Like regular domain names, once a domain name or IDN is subscribed, it is registered based on the characters you defined during your order.

Therefore, if you made a typo during your order, it cannot be corrected. You will need to order a new domain name independently of the previous one (provided the new desired spelling is not already reserved by someone else).

To do this, you must be at least declared as the "Billing" contact for the concerned domain name. You will then need to change the renewal mode of the domain name to automatic renewal.

To do this, click the tabs below to view each of the 2 steps in succession.

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) has implemented security measures to prevent unauthorised or abusive transfers or changes of holder of domain names.

ICANN has defined an incompressible period of 60 days between each operation that can occur on a domain name (creation, change of holder, transfer).

The rules defined by ICANN must be strictly respected by registrars (such as OVHcloud).

You will therefore have no choice but to wait until the end of the 60-day period to transfer your domain name after changing its holder.

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) has implemented security measures to prevent unauthorised or abusive transfers or changes of holder of domain names.

ICANN has defined an incompressible period of 60 days between each operation that can occur on a domain name (creation, change of holder, transfer).

The rules defined by ICANN must be strictly respected by registrars (such as OVHcloud).

You will therefore have no choice but to wait until the end of the 60-day period to perform a new operation (change of holder or transfer) on your domain name.

First, perform a WHOIS query to find out where your domain name is registered and to verify that you are declared as the holder of the domain name.

Case #1.A - Your domain name is registered with OVHcloud and you are declared as the holder of the domain name:

Perform a contact recovery procedure to have your domain name fully managed in your OVHcloud Control Panel. This way, you will no longer need to contact the person who previously managed your domain name.

Case #1.B - Your domain name is registered with OVHcloud and you are not declared as the holder of the domain name:

In accordance with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), OVHcloud cannot provide information about the person or organisation managing the domain name with OVHcloud.

However, you can try to contact the person or organisation managing it by following the instructions in this form.

Case #2 - Your domain name is not registered with OVHcloud:

Contact the registrar (specified in the lines starting with the term Registrar) of your domain name directly to continue your search. If the domain name is not registered with OVHcloud, we will not be able to assist you on this topic.

First, perform a WHOIS query to verify that you are declared as the holder of the domain name.

Case #1 - You are declared as the holder of the domain name:

Perform a contact recovery procedure to have your domain name fully managed in your OVHcloud Control Panel. This way, you will no longer need to contact the person who previously managed your domain name.

Case #2 - You are not declared as the holder of the domain name:

In accordance with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), OVHcloud cannot provide information about the person or organisation managing the domain name with OVHcloud.

However, you can try to contact the person or organisation managing it by following the instructions in this form.

Currently, OVHcloud does not directly support the sale of already registered domain names. We do not offer this type of service.

However, if you wish to put your domain name up for sale on a secondary market, contact one of our partners:

• Afternic.
• Sedo.

If you wish to sell your domain name, you can add it to these platforms. Once added, the authorised providers will offer your domain name at the price you set on one of the platforms above.

A DNS zone for a domain name contains a configuration applicable to it. It consists of technical information called DNS records. The DNS zone acts as a routing centre, directing traffic to the correct services associated with the domain.

For example, you can specify:

• The IP address (DNS records of type A and AAAA) of your web hosting to display your website using your domain name.
• The email servers (DNS records of type MX) to which your domain name should redirect the emails it receives.
• Information related to the security/authentication of your services (web hosting, web server, email server, etc.) associated with your domain name (DNS records of type SPF, DKIM, DMARC, etc.).

A DNS zone is hosted/registered on DNS servers. These DNS servers must be declared to the domain name registrar to use the DNS zone they host.

DNS records are used, for example, to:

• Associate a domain name with an IP address, allowing users to access a website or remote server.
• Associate a domain name with other online resources using a domain name (easier to remember) instead of an IP address.
• Validate configurations for association or security, particularly for email services and shared hosting.

Many DNS records exist. They all have a specific purpose in DNS resolution. At OVHcloud, they are categorised into three parts:

• Pointer records: A, AAAA, NS, CNAME, and DNAME.
• Extended records: CAA, TXT, NAPTR, SRV, LOC, SSHFP, TLSA, RP, SVCB, and HTTPS.
• Email records: MX, SPF, DKIM, and DMARC.

Click the tabs below to view each of the 2 steps in succession.

Manually modifying NS-type DNS records for a domain name in an OVHcloud DNS zone is not recommended, as this would prevent the corresponding DNS zone from resolving.

If you want to modify the configuration of NS-type DNS records for your domain name, it is likely because you want to change the declared DNS servers for it.

To do this, click the tabs below to view each of the 3 steps in succession.

If you encounter an error, we recommend opening a support ticket from the Help Centre, specifying the following information:

• The names of the DNS servers you want to configure.
• The error message encountered.

The Internet has operated since the early 1990s using the IPv4 standard. This standard assigns an IP address in the format X.X.X.X (where each "X" is a number between 0 and 255) to every device connected to the Internet (servers, computers, smartphones, tablets, etc.). However, this standard limits the number of connected devices to approximately 4 billion.

To address this limitation, the IPv6 protocol was introduced, allowing up to 340 sextillion devices to connect to the Internet.

IPv4 addresses are now less available, making it harder to add new devices to the Internet using IPv4. However, IPv6 connections are only useful if, for example, your website is also accessible via this protocol.

A and AAAA DNS records are two types of resource records used to associate a domain name with an IP address.

Their main differences lie in the type of IP address they use:

• A Record (also called a "host record"): Associates a domain name with an IPv4 address (e.g., 213.0.113.0). IPv4 addresses are 32-bit addresses, typically written in dotted decimal notation.
• AAAA Record (also called a "quad A record"): Associates a domain name with an IPv6 address (e.g., 2001:db8:1:1b00:213:0:113:0). IPv6 addresses are 128-bit addresses, typically written in hexadecimal notation.

In other words, A records are used for IPv4 addresses, while AAAA records are used for IPv6 addresses. Both types of records direct traffic to a specific IP address, but they are used for different versions of the Internet protocol.

Note that a domain name can have both A and AAAA records, allowing it to be accessible on both IPv4 and IPv6 networks. This is known as "dual stack", a common practice for websites and services aiming to be accessible to users on both IPv4 and IPv6 networks.

At OVHcloud, PoinTer Record (PTR) configurations cannot be managed directly within our DNS zones.

To configure a reverse/PTR record for an external IP address, contact your Internet Service Provider (ISP), as they are responsible for managing reverse DNS records for the IP addresses they allocate.

Click the tabs below to view each of the 3 steps in succession.

The Start Of Authority (SOA) DNS record provides a set of elements related to the DNS configuration of a domain name.

Below is the result of an SOA query for the domain name domain.tld.

              ;; ANSWER SECTION:

domain.tld.           3600    IN      SOA     dns200.anycast.me. tech.ovh.net. 2025091801 86400 3600 3600000 300

Here are several methods to verify your DNS zone configuration:

• An online verification tool: Several online tools can verify your DNS zone configuration. Use a web browser (Chrome, Edge, Firefox, Safari, etc.) to search for appropriate keywords (e.g., "verify DNS propagation") in a search engine.

• The "dig" command: If you have access to a terminal on a Linux or macOS system, you can use the dig command to verify your DNS zone configuration on the DNS network.

• The "nslookup" command: The nslookup command is available on most operating systems and can also be used to verify your DNS zone configuration.

• From your OVHcloud Control Panel: If the active DNS zone for your domain name is managed by OVHcloud, go to the DNS zones page to view all the DNS records declared for your domain name.

You can verify that DNS propagation is occurring correctly using the Start Of Authority (SOA) DNS record.

First, open a compatible terminal on your computer and execute the following command (replace domain.tld with your own domain name):

dig domain.tld soa

After executing the command, you will receive a result similar to the following:

              ;; ANSWER SECTION:

domain.tld.           3600    IN      SOA     dns200.anycast.me. tech.ovh.net. 2025091801 86400 3600 3600000 300

In this result, retrieve the serial number (in our example: 2025091801).

It follows the format YYYYMMDDRR where:

• YYYYMMDD: Represents the date (year, month, and day) of the last propagated DNS update for the domain name.
• RR: Represents the number of updates made on the indicated date. For example, if only one update was made in a day, it will have the value 00. If two updates were made on the same day, it will have the value 01, and so on.

Once the serial number is retrieved, click the tabs below to view each of the 4 steps in succession.

Click the tabs below to view each of the 3 steps in succession.

Click the tabs below to view each of the 3 steps in succession.

You can create a DNS zone for a subdomain.

To do this, click the tabs below to view each of the 4 steps in succession.

This DNS zone will be installed on 2 OVHcloud DNS servers. You must declare the names of these two servers in the active DNS zone of the domain name from which your subdomain originates (e.g., www.domain.tld is a subdomain of the domain name domain.tld).

To retrieve the names of the 2 DNS servers, click the tabs below to view each of the 2 steps in succession.

Once you have the 2 DNS servers, declare them using two NS-type DNS records in the active DNS zone of the domain name from which your subdomain originates.

Case #1 - The active DNS zone of the domain name from which your subdomain originates is with OVHcloud:

Click the tabs below to view each of the 4 steps in succession.

Case #2 - The active DNS zone of the domain name from which your subdomain originates is not with OVHcloud:

You must declare the 2 DNS servers for your subdomain directly with your domain name's DNS provider (from which your subdomain originates).

Click the tabs below to view each of the 4 steps in succession.

It is possible to set up a wildcard in an OVHcloud DNS zone.

To do this, click the tabs below to view each of the 4 steps in succession.

OVHcloud sends an email containing a text copy of the DNS zone once your DNS zone is deleted, so you can restore it later if needed. This email is sent to the email address associated with your OVHcloud customer account.

To restore your DNS zone, download the file containing the DNS zone from the received email.

Click the tabs below to view each of the 4 steps in succession.

For each service deletion request, an email requesting confirmation of deletion is sent to the email address associated with your OVHcloud customer account.

If you have not clicked on the confirmation link in this email, your DNS zone will not be deleted.

Otherwise, the deletion is initiated and cannot be cancelled anymore. The deletion process may take up to 3 days before you can recreate an OVHcloud DNS zone for your domain name.

This situation occurs when a DNS zone already exists for your domain name with OVHcloud.

Click the tabs below to view each of the 2 steps in succession.

This feature is not available for all domain name extensions. If the tab does not appear in your OVHcloud Control Panel, it means the "GLUE" option is unavailable for your domain name.

Click the tabs below to view each of the 3 steps in succession.

Click the tabs below to view each of the 3 steps in succession.

Click the tabs below to view each of the 3 steps in succession.

In your OVHcloud Control Panel, this message simply indicates that the DNS zone created for your domain name is not its active DNS zone.

In other words, this means that the configuration present in this DNS zone is not the one currently applied to your domain name.

However, make sure that the DNS servers mentioned in the error message are indeed the ones you want to apply to your domain name. Then check the configuration of the DNS zone declared on these same DNS servers with your DNS provider.

If you want to use OVHcloud's DNS servers for your domain name, you can prepare the DNS configuration of the DNS zone present at OVHcloud so that it matches your needs, and then activate it for your domain name.

This means that you only have management of the DNS zone of the domain name but not the domain name itself.

To verify this, click the tabs below to view each of the 2 steps in succession.