How do I view and edit my DNS Records?

The Advanced DNS Settings / DNS Manager page in SiteControl is a tool that visualizes all your domain's DNS records and allows for additions or modifications to your current list of DNS records. The majority of users will never need to edit or even view the DNS records. Use the tool only if you need to create new custom DNS records, redirect existing DNS records to third-party destinations or modify existing mail exchanger (MX) records to point them to a third-party email service provider.
If your domain name points to our name servers, then you can use the Advanced DNS Settings tool. If not, contact your name server provider for assistance with any DNS records changes.

This article contains the following sections:

• View current DNS records
• DNS Record Types and Usage Explained
• Add new DNS records
• Edit existing DNS records

I. View current DNS records:

1. Sign in to SiteControl.
2. To access the DNS Manager directly from the Home page, click DNS Manager in the Manage Services section.


2.1. Alternatively, you can access the DNS Manager through the Domain Name page. Under Manage Services, click Domain Names. The Domain Names page will show a list of your active domain names. Click Edit right next to the domain name you'd view the DNS records for.
At the bottom of the domain Summary page, click Advanced DNS Settings.

The sample below shows our default DNS records of a domain name pointed to Web Hosting, MySQL database and Open-Xchange Email services:

II. DNS Record Types and Usage Explained:

1. Type A (Address Mapping) records, marked in blue color in the sample above, specify the IP address (IPv4) of your Web Hosting Services. Please note that you have your own hosting IP address, different from the one shown in the sample.

2. Type CNAME (Canonical Name) record, marked in orange color, is used to alias the domain name with your MySQL database server.

3. Type MX (Mail exchanger) record, marked in green color, specifies your mail exchange server, and it is responsible for your Email Services. Typically, there are more than one MX records and each of them have a priority value. Lower priority number indicates higher priority MX record.

Information for DomainPeople’s MX record configurations:
a. Option #1 (default setup): The MX record points to hostname “mail.example.com”. In order for this configuration to work properly, an additional type A record (with source “mail.example.com” and destination IP address “64.26.60.153”) must exist.


b. Option #2: The MX record points directly to hostname “mx.siteprotect.com”.

4. Type Name Server (NS) record, marked in red color, specifies the authoritative name servers for your domain name.

5. Type TXT - record, marked in black color is a type of Domain Name System (DNS) record in text format, which contains information about your domain. TXT records also have information that helps external network servers and services handle outgoing email from your domain.
In the sample above the TXT record is related to our Open Xchange email services.

III. Add new DNS records:
1. Follow the instructions in Section I: View current DNS records of this article to access the DNS Manager tool. If you have multiple domain names under your account, make sure to select the correct one using the Edit DNS Zone for drop-down menu.



2. Use the dropdown menu of the Add a New Resource Record section and select the type of the record you wish to add: A, CNAME, NS, TXT or SPF. If you need to add an MX record, then use the pre-selected field that has a Type - MX.

3. In the Source field, enter the name of the record (e.g.: example.com, www.example.com, ftp.example.com, mail.example.com, imap.example.com).
Note: The “@”symbol is not accepted by our tool as a valid source. Thus, make sure to replace it with the actual domain name (e.g.: example.com)

4. In the Destination field, enter the location to which the new record will point:
a. If you selected type A, then the destination must be an IP address.
b. If you selected type CNAME, then the destination must point to a domain name or hostname.
c. If you selected type MX, then the destination must point to the hostname of the email service provider.
d. If you selected type TXT, then the destination value can be free-form text data of any type.
Note: The following records should be added as TXT record type in order to use our SPF records listed below:

Our universal Open Xchange SPF value is "v=spf1 include:mfg.siteprotect.com ~all"
For Hosted Exchange 2016 SPF value is "v=spf1 include:spf.serverdata.net ~all"
Our universal Open Xchange & Hosted Exchange 2016 SPF value is:
"v=spf1 include:mfg.siteprotect.com include:spf.serverdata.net ~all"
e. If you selected type SPF, the destination must contain a properly configured SPF record value starting with “v=spf1”.

5. Finally, click Add Now.

IV. Edit existing DNS records:
Keep in mind that there is a propagation time when DNS changes are made. Typically, the propagation time takes a few minutes for DNS changes to update across the Internet's DNS system, however it can occasionally take longer (4-6 hours) for a change to take effect.

1. Follow the instructions in Section I: View current DNS records of this article to access the DNS Manager tool. If you have multiple domain names under your account, make sure to select the correct one using the Edit DNS Zone for drop-down menu.

2. In the Current Resource Record(s) section, you can choose to change the name of either the Source or the Destination of an existing record.

3. Click the Update button next to the appropriate Destination field.

Note: Before you update an existing DNS record, it is recommended to lower the Time To Live (TTL) value to 300 seconds (5 minutes). This way the DNS propagation time will be shorter.


4. If you need to delete a record, click Delete next to the appropriate Destination field.