DNS Tools

DNS standards for "Domain Name System." The purpose of these tools is to help you work out details in relation to your client's domain.

Whois

A whois and nameserver search tool is used to query official domain name servers for the information in relation to the registration details for a domain. This may include:

• Registrant - who the domain is owned by
• Registrar - where the domain was purchased
• Name Server - the NS records the domain is currently pointing to 
• Expiry Date - when the domain is up for renewal 

Depending on who the official server is for the domain, they may not return all of the above information.

DNS Lookup

The way the Domain Name System works is that a domain name acts like a sign post. It points to the location of the records where all the IP information is located, which detail where the website is hosted, where emails should be stored etc. This record is called the nameserver, or the NS record. Each website normally has two of these records. The idea being that if one IP address fails it can use the other one.

In most cases this record should be set to point to our servers as we will manage the other records for the client. Sometimes however a client will want to use their own nameserver and just set the records on their server to indicate that we are looking after the website. Learn how to change a nameserver here.

There are 2 main records located on the nameservers that you need to be aware of:

• A - The A record is the IP address of the location of where the website is hosted. This is always the IP address of our servers. If the client is managing their own DNS (usually because they look after their own email) they need to change their A record to point to our servers.
• MX - The MX record indicates where emails are to be sent to. Sometimes a client that has out grown our POP server, or has special needs will have their own Mail Exchange server in house, in which case we would change the MX record to point to their server. 

You can type a domain name into this tool and select the record type you are interested in to see what it is currently set to. Remember that if you have changed a record, it can take up to 48 hours for servers around the world to recognise the change.