easyDNS™ allows you to:

• create new hosts and aliases for your domain, making adding an FTP site, for example, easier than ever
• modify DNS expire times for your domain, keeping your website up and running even during changes
• create and update your own email forwarding accounts, so your can redirect email at your domain to any other email address *
• create and update your own web forwarding address, so you can host your site at any URL and (optionally) hide that URL from people browsing your site *

* these services come with DNS-Plus Service
Plus, when you register or transfer your first domain name through easyDNS™, you are provided with your own account (username and password) so you can register or transfer future domains even faster and easier.

A domain name is the best way for people to find and communicate with you and/or your company on the internet. The main uses for a domain name are web forwarding and email forwarding.

Many people and companies would rather have a short, easy to remember website address like www.test-domain.com, rather than a long URL like www.somehostingcompany.com/clients/joe-and-mary/mainpage.html or an IP number like 205.210.42.98. When you register a domain name and set up web forwarding, any web requests to your new domain (www.test-domain.com) will be forwarded to the URL or IP of your choice.

When you register a domain name and set up email forwarding, you still keep your current email account (through your ISP or webmail provider). All email sent to your domain will be forwarded to your current email address. Your business cards, for example, can have joe@test-domain.com or sales@test-domain.com, instead of jm001@mail.some-isp-company.com.

Your member pages on easyDNS™ allow you to set up and modify email and web forwarding for your domain ... at your convenience.

Currently, easyDNS™ supports new registrations for domains with .com, .org, .net, .biz, .info, .mobi, .co.uk, .org.uk, and .ca domain extensions. The registration process for .uk domains is not yet automated. Please contact support request a manual registration.

We plan to offer registration of other top-level domains in the future.

* For your security, easyDNS does not store your credit card information. You will need to enter this information each time you pay for our services.

If you have already paid our invoice for your domain, you can just sit back and wait. We'll let you know via email when the domain has been registered.

In the meantime, you may want to log into your members page and configure your DNS settings for your domain (host records, web forwarding, email forwarding, etc.). This way, your domain is ready to go when the registration is complete. We set up a parked web page for you to start off with, and a default email map, but you may want to change those if you already know what you want to do with your domain name.

When we confirm with the registry that your registration is complete, and we see that it is visible in the whois database, we will send you a confirmation email.

The easyDNS™ Terms of Service describe the terms and conditions that apply to individuals and companies registering and maintaining domain names through easyDNS™. Accepting these terms and conditions is part of the easyDNS™ registration process. You must indicate acceptance of these Terms of Service before we can register your domain name.

You can read the Terms of Service right now by clicking here.

Registrar transfers most often fail because the whois information is incorrect or outdated. Most transfers must be confirmed through the admin contact email address and if it is not currently valid you need to contact the current registrar to update it before getting us to submit the transfer request.

Many registries also require the usage of a domain authorization code to fully authorize the transfer of domains between registrars.

Also, the registrar lock may be enabled for your domain, which is a safety measure used to prevent accidental transfers. You would need to contact your current registrar to find out whether that feature is enabled, and disable it to allow for transfer.

One other possible issue is that if your domain is within 60 days of its renewal date and you have received an invoice from some registrars, you may not be able to transfer the domain. You would need to contact them and have the "unpaid status" removed from your domain before you can successfully transfer the registry.

You may also want to look at the ICANN policy for registrar-to-registrar domain transfers for details of the confirmation process used to ensure transfers are intended.

Yes, the following rules apply to .com, .net, .biz, .info and .org applications:

• The address and organization fields are required can ONLY contain up to 30 characters.
• applications containing non ASCII characters will not be accepted.
• All telephone numbers must be in the form of +1.1234567890 or +1.1234567890x125 where 125 is the extension number.
  (please note that +1. denotes the country code where "1" is the country code for North America)
• If a fax number is not included leave the field blank. An entry of N/A will not be accepted
• For registrar transfers of .com, .net, .info, .biz and .org domains, you will need to get the authorization code from your current registrar in order to complete the transfer process.

Changing hosting companies is easy and painless with easyDNS™. Once your new hosting company has assigned you a new IP number or URL for your website, just log in to your easyDNS™ member page, and select the "DNS" option for your domain. All you need to do now is change the old IP number or URL of your website to the new number. Within 15 minutes, our name servers will start sending out the new IP number or forwarding to the new URL. *

Remember, that other name servers may still have your old DNS information cached, and may still direct requests for your domain to your old hosting company for several days. In order to prevent this, Pro Service users should take some steps before switching their DNS. A few days before the switch, reduce the "Refresh" time for your domain (to 3 hours, for example) and your "Minimum" time down as well (let's say 12 hours). This way, the easyDNS™ secondary nameservers will check for new information on your domain every 3 hours, other nameservers won't hold on to the DNS information for more than 12 hours after the switch. After you make the switch to the new IP or URL and the new information has propagated throughout the Internet (give this a couple days just to be on the safe side), you should turn the "Refresh" and "Minimum" times back up (12 hours and 1 day respectively are common values). This will speed up access to your new site (since requests can be cached by nameservers closer to the people accessing your site.)

* Forwarding to a URL is only possible with DNS-Plus service.

Easy: update your mail mappings. Log in to your easyDNS™ member page, and select the "mail" option for your domain.

From here, you can edit or delete any of your existing mappings or add new ones. You can also edit your "default" mapping and "mail-to-all" mapping. The default mapping is where mail goes if it gets sent to an address at your domain that you haven't set up (e.g. if you don't have an explicit mapping for ooga-booga@test-domain.com, mail for that address will be send to the default mail map address. The mail-to-all mapping is an email address that "explodes" out to every other address at your domain ... a quick way to get the message to everyone in your company, for example!

Again, this is easy with easyDNS™. Log in to your Member Services page and select the "DNS" option.

If your FTP site has the same IP as your domain, then you'll want to "Add an Alias". Just set up an alias called ftp point to the host test-domain.com (or whatever your domain is).

If your FTP site has a different IP from your domain, then you'll want to "Add a Host". Just set up a host called ftp and point to the new IP address.

No. Current easyDNS™ members can click on the "add a domain" button from within their members page. easyDNS™ remembers the information you have used for previous domain name registrations, saving you time.

Do not worry if the information is different from one domain to the next. You always have the option of modifying as little or as much of the information as you wish.

Web forwarding is a mechanism by which you can direct web requests for your domain (i.e. http://www.test-domain.com/) to another URL, rather than an IP address. This enables you to point your domain's web address at another web page, such as a personal account at your ISP, or a free website provider like Geocities or Tripod.

Normally with this feature enabled, when someone enters http://www.test-domain.com the request passes through our proxy server which redirects the request to the "real URL" where your website is actually located. If Stealth Redirection is not turned on, the browser's location bar will display the URL of the actual website (i.e. http://www.someisp.com/users/you/).

By enabling Stealth Redirection, the location bar retains your domain name, even if the website is loading from some other location. For complete documentation and a tutorial on how it works, please see http://www.easytest.com. This site is located on a free webspace provider and explains the ins and outs of using Stealth Redirection with easyDNS™. We suggest that all easyDNS™ members have a look at this site prior to enabling Stealth Redirection for any addresses within their domains.

• Log into the member's section of the site, and go into your DNS settings.
• Add a second host with the same name as the first (i.e. www.test-domain.com)
• Enter the second IP address in your round robin order.
• Submit this form. You will be given a warning that you have two different IP addresses for the same host, submit form again.
• Next time you load your DNS settings this host will be listed as a Round Robin host, with additional fields to add more Round Robin addresses.

Round Robin support is available for DNS-Only and DNS-Plus Service domains.

Please login to the members page and click the "delete" link in the utilities module. Select the domain you want deleted and click "next" until it changes to done, and then click done to confirm the changes.

If you do not have the utilities module select "personalize " from the left side margin of your easyDNS members page. Add "utilities" to your modules then go back to your members home page.

The deletion will of course result in the domain no longer being resolved through our nameservers, so all web page and email associated with the domain will cease to function unless you have made provisions elsewhere.

Registrant transfers (ownership changes) are performed by the registrars on behalf of the domain owners. You can change the registrant information to that of an existing CIRA account or to a new account that we can create for you.

CIRA requires a year of renewal be added to the existing expiration date of any domain that requests a change of registrant information so when you are ready to change the ownership of a .ca domain name please contact support@easyDNS.com and we will gather all the information required from you to initiate the change request and generate an invoice for the required year of renewal.

Once easyDNS nameservers have been delegated to your domain, and the change has fully propagated, it is never a bad idea to contact the previous DNS provider and have them delete the old zone file for the domain name.

This is especially true if your old DNS provider is also an ISP that might have their subscribers connecting to the internet through the same nameservers that served your domain name.

Domain cloning lets you maintain several domains, all with the same settings, by only making changes to one of the domains.

Cloning a domain will not change the nameservers currently delegated to the domain. Please use the Whois link next to your domain on your easyDNS members page or contact the domains current registrar.

Only domains using the same service level can be clones of one another.

To change the registrant for a domain name, your first step is to contact your registrar. They will need to take care of most of it behind the scenes. If easyDNS is not your .ca registrar for the domain in question, we will not be able to assist you with the procedure. You can, if you wish, transfer the domain to us first, after which we can do it.

If the domain is with easyDNS already, then you will need to send us an e-mail, requesting that we begin the process of a registrant transfer. For authorization, you will need to include the answer(s) to the secret question(s) listed in the account management section of your easyDNS member page. We will then issue an invoice for the transfer. The invoice will be for the standard cost of a year s service at the service level the domain is already using.

If you prefer, you can send us your information via our secure messaging system at https://members.easydns.com/sslmessage.php3 . If you have an ongoing support ticket, please add the ticket ID that appears in the subject line to the subject line of your secure message.

When the invoice is paid, we will then need you to provide us with information regarding what registrant account the domain needs to be moved to. As explained in What is a registrant transfer, every person with a .ca domain has a CIRA registrant account. This account number can be found by doing a whois lookup on one of their existing domain names at http://whois.cira.ca/public if they are not certain what it is. Once we have been advised as to which registrant account the domain should be moved to, we will begin the procedure.

If the domain is being transferred to someone with no CIRA account currently available, then easyDNS can create one for them. You will need to provide us with the same information that is shown in the .ca whois records.

Specifically you will need to provide:

Registrant info:
Registrant Name - this should be the name of the actual new owner of the domain, either a person or Company. Remember, they must be Canadian or fall under CIRA's Canadian Presence Requirements as detailed here : http://support.easydns.com/canpresence.php3
Description - this is optional, but useful. A description of the purpose of the site itself.

Administrative Contact
Name - Name of the person who will be responsible for confirming changes to the domain, and who will be the main contact for any sort of queries required by the registry or registrar.
Job Title - Title within the company that owns the domain, if applicable
Postal Address - Mailing address for the administrative contact - must be valid. PO Boxes are fine.
Phone - A valid phone number that can be reached is required.
Fax - Optional, but also very useful.
Email address - This is vital, as any changes to the account or domain must be confirmed by this address.

Technical Contact
The same information as above. This section is required by CIRA, but is not currently used. If desired, the same information as Administrative contact can be provided.

Once we have received this information, we can create the new CIRA account. It will need to be confirmed by the admin contact provided, and then we can begin the transfer procedure.

Once we have moved the domain into the new registrant account, confirmation e-mails will be sent by CIRA to both the old and new administrative contacts. Each needs to confirm that they agree to the transfer of the domain. Once this is done, the domain will transfer from the old registrant account to the new one.

If you have a copy of your CIRA user ID and password, you can change the administrative contact information via the whois link to the right of the domain on your easyDNS members page. CIRA will send you a confirmation email to the current administrative contact detailing how to confirm the change. If you cannot receive that CIRA confirmation email but have the CIRA user ID and password for your domain, then visit https://registrants.cira.ca/user and confirm the administrative contact change via the form provided.

If you do not have the CIRA user ID and password for the domain abd the current administrative contact email address is invalid, pleasae see the FAQ "What is the MCAC process and how does it apply to my .ca domain name?"

You will need to remember either your username or one of your domain names, plus be able to answer your Secret Question in order to recover your easyDNS™ password.

Keep in mind that we can not actually tell you what your old password was, because it is always encrypted. However, we can issue you a new random password, and you can then change it to something else ... and please keep your username and password in a safe place!

Click here to go to the password recovery page.

Are you still in touch with the former employee? If so, the easiest thing to do would be to contact them and get the username and password, since the domain is company property they should comply. If this is not possible then we need to move the domain from its current account into your own company account.

Please visit www.easyDNS.com and at the top of the page you will find the sign up button. Please click that button and proceed to create a free easyDNS member's account.

Once that is done please send us a fax on company letterhead signed by an officer of the company stating that the domain in question is property of said company. You must also include incorporation documents if the domain is registered to a company and photo ID of the signing officer. Once we receive and review the fax we can then move the domain into your company account.

On the signed fax please include a contact email address and the user ID of your easyDNS account. Our fax number is 416-535-0237.

Please allow 24 - 48 hours for the processing of any faxed documentation.

The price to register and maintain a domain through easyDNS™ depends on the level of service you want. There are currently two levels of service: DNS-Only and DNS-Plus.

For complete information on these levels of service, please visit:

Information on DNS-Only Service
Information on DNS-Plus Service

smtp2.easydns.com

For example, your main mail exchanger is mail.example.com and has a preference of 5.Then create another mail exchanger record for smtp.easydns.com with a preference of 10.

It can take up to 6 hours before our nameservers have picked up the zone information from your primary IP

The cycle for our nameservers to reload new zones...

ns1:      0:30,  4:30,  8:30, 12:30, 16:30, 20:30
ns2:      3:40,  9:40, 15:40, 21:40
remote1:  4:00, 10:00, 16:00, 22:00
remote2:  3:40,  9:40, 15:40, 21:40
ns3:      2:30,  8:30, 14:30, 20:30
ns6:      3:30,  9:30, 15:30, 21:30

It can take up to 6 hours before our nameservers have picked up the zone information from your new primary IP

The cycle for our nameservers to reload new zones...

ns1:      0:30,  4:30,  8:30, 12:30, 16:30, 20:30
ns2:      3:40,  9:40, 15:40, 21:40
remote1:  4:00, 10:00, 16:00, 22:00
remote2:  3:40,  9:40, 15:40, 21:40
ns3:      2:30,  8:30, 14:30, 20:30
ns6:      3:30,  9:30, 15:30, 21:30

If your primary will not allow the BIND ACL we have provided, and requires individual IP addresses, please allow connections from:

205.234.220.154
205.234.160.98
64.202.104.250
216.246.59.66
209.200.151.10
209.200.131.10
205.210.42.20
209.200.141.4
209.200.177.10
205.234.220.146
216.246.59.82
206.223.184.242