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How to create a secondary domain / zone.


Here are the steps required to create a SECONDARY DNS zone. Secondary zones allow you to keep your primary DNS hosting at another provider or on another server outside of our network, but increase redundancy by replicating zones to our network so you can add our name servers at your registrar too.

  1. Ask your primary DNS provider for the IP address to use when pulling a zone transfer from their network. Sometimes it is simply one of their DNS servers, but often they have a special IP address for that purpose. You will need this IP in step 3.
  2. Obtain our Zone Transfer IP address by contacting Total Uptime technical support. You will need to provide this IP address to your primary DNS provider/ISP, or enter it into their web interface, or if you manage the primary DNS server yourself, you will need to allow zone transfers from this IP addresses. Until complete, do not proceed with step 3 because we won’t have permission to copy your zone and step 3 will fail, causing great disappointment.
  3. Now you’re ready to create your first secondary zone.
    1. Go to CLOUD DNS
    2. Click on DOMAINS
    3. Click ADD
    4. Enter the name of the domain (e.g. example.com)
    5. Change the DOMAIN TYPE to secondary
    6. Enter the IP address your ISP gave you for pulling zone transfers
    7. Update the email address and adjust any TTL values as you see fit.
    8. Click SAVE
  4. At this point our network will attempt to pull a zone transfer using the two IP addresses you obtained in step 2 which will then propagate the changes to all of the DNS servers within our network. This process will take no more than 3 minutes. At the end of the 3 minute period, the STATUS column in the domains table will indicate success or failure. If it is green, then all is well. The transfer completed successfully. If it gives an error, a zone transfer was unsuccessful and your primary DNS provider may need to validate that they have allowed each of the IP addresses listed above. (NOTE: Don’t confuse the status icon with the authoritative icon, which is different and will change 24 hours after you complete step 5 below).
  5. When complete and the status is GREEN, you’re ready to add our name servers at your registrar. Add 2 of the name servers shown on the right-side of the DOMAINS tab that are from the a and b columns and that match with your domain’s TLD. Click the learn more link in the nameserver box to determine the best way to utilize them.
  6. If you would like to see a copy of the secondary zone in our database to ensure accuracy, simply double-click the row in the Domains table and a pop-up window will show the contents.

If you have any questions at all, we’re here to help. Simply submit a support case!

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