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Delegate a zone (domain)

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A domain zone is a set of resource records of a domain. A domain zone is distributed from special servers in the DNS system — NS-servers, which are specified in the NS records of the domain.

When registering a domain, NS-servers of the registrar are specified for it. To manage the domain zone via DNS hosting, you need to delegate the domain, i.e. specify the NS servers of the hosting from the registrar.

If you delegate your main domain to Selectel, all of its subdomains will be delegated to Selectel by default.

You can manage your main domain zone and subdomain zones through different hosting services, for example:

Delegate main domain and subdomains to Selectel

  1. In the control panel, in the top menu, click Products and select DNS hosting.

  2. Make sure you have created a primary domain zone and added resource records to it.

  3. To add resource records for a subdomain, create a subdomain zone and add resource records to it. The main domain zone and the subdomain zone must be created in the same project. Once created, you can move the subdomain zone to another project.

  4. Go to the control panel of the domain registrar where your primary domain is registered.

  5. In the NS records, replace the values with Selectel's NS servers: a.ns.selectel.ru, b.ns.selectel. ru, c.ns.selectel.ru, d.ns.selectel.ru. Each server must be specified in a separate entry.

    When the zone status in the control panel changes to DELEGATED, the records will begin to be issued from the Selectel servers.

Delegate main domain to third-party hosting, subdomain to Selectel

  1. Go to the control panel of the domain registrar where your primary domain is registered.

  2. Make sure that the NS servers of the third-party hosting service are specified for the primary domain.

  3. Create a subdomain zone in Selectel:

    3.1 In the control panel, click Products in the top menu and select DNS hosting.

    3.2.Click Add Zone.

    3.3.Enter the name of the subdomain with a period at the end. such as first.example.com. for example.

    3.4.Click Add. NS and SOA records with default values will be automatically created in the subdomain zone:

    • NS — a.ns.selectel. ru., b.ns.selectel.ru., c.ns.selectel.ru., d.ns. selectel``.ru.
    • SOA — a.ns.selectel.ru. support.selectel.ru. <zone_serial_number> 10800 3600 604800 60, where <zone_serial_number> is the zone serial number, which changes when the zone is updated and signals the caching servers that records need to be cached again.

    3.5.Optional: move the subdomain zone to another project.

  4. Delegate subdomain:

    4.1.Go to the control panel of the third-party hosting where the main domain is delegated.

    4.2.In the primary domain zone, create four NS records, one for each of the Selectel NS servers:

    • record-name is the name of the subdomain, such as first.example.com;
    • record value — one of the authoritative Selectel servers: a.ns.selectel.ru, b.ns.selectel.ru, c.ns.selectel.ru, d.ns.selectel.ru.

    When the subdomain zone status in the control panel changes to DELEGATED, the records will begin to be given from the Selectel servers.

Delegate main domain to Selectel, subdomain to a third-party hosting service

  1. In the control panel, in the top menu, click Products and select DNS hosting.

  2. Make sure you have created a primary domain zone and added resource records to it.

  3. Delegate the primary domain to Selectel:

    3.1.Go to the control panel of the domain registrar where your main domain is registered.

    3.2.In the domain's NS records, replace the values with Selectel's NS servers: a.ns.selectel. ru, b.ns.selectel.ru, c.ns.selectel.ru, d.ns.selectel.ru. Each server must be specified in a separate entry.

  4. Delegate the subdomain to a third-party hosting service:

    4.1.In the control panel, in the top menu, click Products and select DNS hosting.

    4.2.Open the zone page of the main domain.

    4.3.Add a group of NS records by clicking Add and specifying the data:

    • group name — subdomain name;
    • record type is NS;
    • record value — the name of the third-party hosting NS server.

    4.4.If you want to specify another NS server, click Add and paste the name of the NS server.

    4.5.Click Add.