How to manage DNS records or domain forwarding at registrar level

DNS-records

This guide will walk you through everything necessary to managing your DNS records at the registrar level. Because we consider registrar level DNS management an advanced function, we’ll be expecting you to have a basic knowledge of how DNS works.

This guide will only work for you if your domain is registered with us and you have the option “Manage my DNS records manually” enabled for the domain within your Websavers account. If, instead, you have the option “Manage my DNS records using my hosting plan or VPS” enabled, follow this guide to managing your DNS records with Plesk instead. If your domain is registered elsewhere the general principles here will still apply, but we cannot help you if you get stuck: click here to transfer your domain to Websavers.

DNS at its simplest is a list of records that specify domain name X (and optionally some of its subdomains) points to an IP address, like: 1.2.3.4. You’ll likely encounter records of type A the most; their primary use is to point your domain to where its website is hosted. Each domain could have just a couple or many DNS records.

This guide will help you recognize the different types of records, what they’re used for and how to configure your DNS records in our Client Centre. This includes updating, adding, or removing DNS records for your domain. It also includes creating a domain forward.

Important: due to the manner in which the global DNS system works, any changes made to your domain’s DNS records can take up to 48 hours to complete, though often the changes are visible within just a few hours. Please be patient! You can check the global progress here, but it may not yet correlate with your own local DNS.

How to find your DNS settings

  1. Login to the Client Centre and select Registered Domains from the main menu
  2. Select the domain for which you wish to use registrar level DNS from the list
  3. If you have already activated DNS management for your domain, skip to step 6, otherwise continue with (4)
  4. Under the Name Servers & DNS section, select the second option: “Manage my DNS records manually using the DNS Management controls provided below” and click Save Changes. If this option is already selected, move on to step 5.
  5. Scroll down and you’ll now see the “DNS Host Record Management” section. Select the “Activate” button to activate free registrar level DNS management.
  6. Scroll down to “DNS Host Record Management” again and click the “Manage” button to manage your DNS records.

Here you will see the registrar-level DNS Management interface. It will list your existing records and provide the option to add a new one at the bottom in the green box.

DNS records
Client Centre registrar-level DNS Management UI

If you have been told to add or create a DNS record, read these tips:

  1. When adding or editing a DNS record, you only need to fill in the Subdomain field if you’re adding a record specifically for a subdomain. For example, if you explicitly want to use the subdomain xyz.websaversdemo.com, you would enter simply ‘xyz’. If you’re not adding a record that applies to a sub domain leave that field blank.
  2. Add or Edit Existing? Always check to see if a record exists already with the same type and subdomain. It must be both, otherwise it’s not the same record. If it does exist already, you should edit the existing record(s) and not create a new one.

Identifying Common DNS Records

If you’re not sure which records you should be editing, this list will help you to understand and find the correct records for each type of hosting service. More details about how each type of record works can be found further into this article.

  • DNS Records for Website Host: This is what is called your root DNS record which controls where visitors are sent when they’re accessing your domain like mydomain.com. This is a record of type where the subdomain field is blank. There is also typically a CNAME record for www.mydomain.com which points to mydomain.com. Warning: keep an eye out for when *other* records (like mail records) are CNAMEs that point to your root record, as that means changing your root record will change them at the same time, which is often unintended.
  • DNS Records for Inbound Mail: This is controlled by records of type MX with no subdomain because if there were a subdomain then the records would be controlling mail delivery to an_address@sub.mydomain.com and not an_address@domain.com. Sometimes there’s just one MX record and other times there’s multiples with various priority levels assigned.
  • DNS Records for Mail IMAP/POP/SMTP Connections: This differs with various mail hosts. For example, with Exchange hosting you don’t need these at all, while with our Plesk hosting you typically will use mail.mydomain.com for all of these functions.

Removing a DNS Record

To remove a record, remove the subdomain and address values in that row and click the Save Changes button.

Adding or Editing a DNS Record

  • To edit a DNS record, simply adjust the values you see then select the save button.
  • To add a new DNS entry, fill out the fields in the last/empty row, then select the save button.

One of the fields is called Record type which allows you to select the type of DNS record. If you’re adding a ‘root’ DNS record (sometimes called ‘@’) this just means to leave the subdomain field blank.

Select the type of record below to see the individual processes in more detail:

A records

AAAA records

CNAME records

MX records

PTR record

TXT record (also SPF Record)

SRV records

URL Redirect

Jordan Schelew

Jordan has been working with computers, security, and network systems since the 90s and is a managing partner at Websavers Inc. As a founder of the company, he's been in the web tech space for over 15 years.
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