Information Technology Grimoire

Version .0.0.1

IT Notes from various projects because I forget, and hopefully they help you too.

Change Registrars

Price

AWS Route 53 charges $10 a year. Most other places charge $15+ per year. If you have 100 domains like me, that’s a big savings. There is a problem though, Route53 has hidden charges.

Also, bulk hosting/dns like 1and1.com bait you with $1 a year, then bump prices up later. Route 53 is just $10/yr every year, but then charges you for the hosted zone.

Cloudflare seems to be the best at only $10 a year and no hidden fees + great service options.

Technical Offering

I used to use wsmdomains.com but they cannot do anything related to DNS security. So if I want advanced records related to DMARC, DKIM, SPF, etc I need to have a registrar that supports these features (like cloudflare).

The Problem

If you’ve been baited with a $1 domain or moved to a registrar or renewed, you cannot move away from them for 60 days. Be aware of this. You can change records, pointers, name servers etc, but the registrar itself controls your domain name until you move to another one.

Many of them will simply destroy your DNS records unless you stay with them (1and1.com). You need to follow the steps below to duplicate your records, then propagate them to another registrar and only then can you renew with the new registrar.

Overview:

  • Lower TTL as low as possible (and wait)
  • Duplicate all records on the new provider
  • Point the NS to the provider controlled DNS servers
  • Unlock/initiate transfer to new provider, answer emails
  • Verify in https://dnschecker.org/
  • Finally, renew with new registrar

Lower TTL

TTL means “time to live”. TTL is how long before DNS checks again. Sometimes it’s cached for even longer, but if you have this set for a very long period, you almost guarantee that caches will not look again for that amount of time. It is considered best practice to keep TTL higher when changes are not expected, and shorten it only when actions like a move are impending:

Lower your TTL to 1m on everything, then wait. If it was previously at 60m, then you will need to wait AT LEAST that long. Verify using any investigative tools what the current TTL is to see if DNS records have propagated before moving NS.

Duplicate Records

We will use the example of ionos (1and1) to Route53, but each registrar is a bit different

SOURCE: Ionos

https://my.ionos.com/domain-dns-settings/

DESTINATION: Route53 (AWS)

Route 53 puts records for a domain into a “hosted zone”, you will need a separate hosted zone for every domain you have. If you have only 1 domain, you’ll need only 1 hosted zone.

https://us-east-1.console.aws.amazon.com/route53/v2/hostedzones

Each provider does this slightly differently. I like AWS Route 53. It’s no nonsense, has tons of options and should be fairly robust.

Point Name Servers

AWS uses these:

ns-71.awsdns-08.com.
ns-1148.awsdns-15.org.
ns-738.awsdns-28.net.
ns-1912.awsdns-47.co.uk.

I have different TXT records on my AWS route 53 hosted zone settings, so when I see them appear in dnschecker, I know my NS has fully propagated.

If I did not have the new DNS records setup, all of my old DNS records would of vanished at this point and I would have interruption of service. Because I set them up FIRST on the destination, there was no interruption even though for 48 hours DNS heirarchy around the world might choose the old provider or the new provider and there is nothing I can do about what they choose. If it’s duplciate information, there is no outtage.

Unlock/Initiate

Respond to whatever emails/communicate you get to unlock/initiate the transfer. This is different for every registrar. Some have a GUI option on their website where you need to check a box, click a button, or save a code.

Verify Propagation

Look in https://dnschecker.org/ to see if your name servers have updated. If they have updated, then you can control DNS records with the new registrar. Route 53 does not require that they control the domain name in order to control the DNS records. So you can setup the records ahead of time and when the world starts asking route 53 DNS questions, they will be able to seamlessly serve the copied records you setup ahead of time.

Renew

Only now, can you renew.

Various DNS Registrars:

Cloudflare

This is my favorite. They have great technology, security, easy interface, API, and are the lowest overall cost with the least fuss. https://www.cloudflare.com/plans/ I highly recommend them.

Godaddy

Their DNS records are nice, but difficult to learn at first. They do have nice support, but wait times and upsells are a nuisance. I do not recommend them.

Route 53

AWS has the most detailed and flexible DNS records with the most robust infrastructures, but also require the most skill and has hidden fees. They are not the cheapest, or in my opinion the best.

I really hate their support, as everything is a 24-48 hour delay to respond and often they say nothing while preparing the answer so you are left in limbo, even if you pay for one of their technical support plans. They are just too big to care.

1and1.com

$1 first year, then $15 per year. I do not like them because they don’t have any other great service, like cloudflare does.

Google

I haven’t used, but I know they will have solid options. I fear support may be very difficult to get ahold of.