DNS

(or, making your domain real)

Option 1:   let us handle all of this. We will charge $30 per year to register your (.com/.net/.org) domain and take care of everything as long as you're hosted with us. You may pre-pay for 1-10 years at once.

Option 2:   if you already know what to do and you just need the details, here they are: use ns1.ntdcommunications.com/64.49.223.107 and ns2.ntdcommunications.com/209.61.173.173. (However, if you have a .us domain, use ns1.ntd.us and ns2.ntd.us.) If you're getting a .com, .net, .org, .biz, .info, or .us domain, make yourself the technical contact. Otherwise, if you need our info for technical or zone contact, put down "Hostmaster General" / 5725 W. Saint Charles Rd. Ste. 108 / Berkeley, IL 60163 / US / TEL +1 708 544 7477 / FAX +1 708 544 7664 / hostmaster@ntdcommunications.com.

Option 3:   How does all this stuff work? Well, here's a simplified version of what happens behind the scenes every time anyone goes to any web site. The step-by-step guide you may be looking for follows.

The DNS Resolution Process

Computers naturally like to work with numbers. When one computer wants to contact another over the Internet, it needs to use its IP address. So when you type "www.yahoo.com" into your browser, before your computer can ever begin downloading their home page it needs to find out what address it's supposed to connect to. Your computer asks a computer at your ISP to do the legwork and get back to it with an answer -- what the ISP's machine (running a program called a resolver) does is of interest here.

Resolvers look at web site names from right to left. At each step they need to talk to a different server. The first stop is with a root server, who is asked about the ".com" part. It responds with the address of a server that knows ".com". Then the resolver calls that server to ask about ".yahoo.com". It responds with the address of a server that knows ".yahoo.com". Finally, the resolver connects to this last server to ask about the address of www.yahoo.com. After getting an answer, it sends it back to your desktop.

So to register "schmoop.com" you need to a) get us to run a nameserver for schmoop.com and b) tell the ".com" server that it should send resolvers our way when asked about schmoop.com. Naturally, we set up our nameserver as soon as you sign up, so it's just making that connection to the rest of the world that's left. Who do you talk to? Well ...

If you're not getting a .com, .net, or .org [or .biz or .info] domain, there's just one answer. We'll leave it up to you to find it, but you're looking for the organization that runs the servers at the level above your domain. i.e. if you're going to be "schmoop.ca", you need to work with the people behind the ".ca" servers.

.com/.net/.org [.biz/.info] are unique, however, in that there is competition for your registration business. It used to be that Network Solutions was the single point of contact for these, just like someone is for ".ca" and every other top-level domain. While DNS requires that there be just one database behind the ".com" (or ".net", or ".org") servers, a couple years ago it came about that one company started running the database while several others were allowed to sell the domains to the public and enter them into that database.

The "InterNIC" is the organization that runs the database. Network Solutions, now part of Verisign, continues to sell domains, but so do register.com and many others. We happen to use joker.com, but that doesn't mean anything to you. Use whoever you like -- contract terms vary greatly, as do prices and service.

Here's the confusing part, and guess what: you don't need to know any of this to get your domain registered. The InterNIC is just a division of Network Solutions. The InterNIC also runs the root name servers. These roles used to not be clearly divided, so they're still not in some people's minds. But they are (in theory) all divided up now, and the system works as described. Nobody is certain what the future will bring.

How to Register: Summary

So, to register your domain:

1. Go to the appropriate registrar's web site. For a .com, .net, or .org domain, this can be any of several sites like www.networksolutions.com, www.register.com, or www.joker.com.
2. Find the new domain registration form.
3. Fill it out. All the names and addresses it asks for are yours, except where it asks about a "technical" or "zone" contact. That's us. See above.
4. Somewhere you'll need to fill in name server information. The data you need are: ns1.ntdcommunications.com, whose address is 64.49.223.107, and ns2.ntdcommunications.com, whose address is 209.61.173.173.

How does the resolver know how to contact the root servers? It is configured with a list of IP addresses to try. This has to be kept up to date by the sysadmin although changes are infrequent.

Don't domains have more than one name server? Yes, and everywhere we wrote about learning a server's address the resolver really learns a whole list of server names and addresses.

And if you typed in "yahoo.com" without the "www"? It seems like the resolver would ask the ".com" server for an address. The ".com" server responds, "no, I don't know the address of yahoo.com, but I know who does," and you end up talking to the ".yahoo.com" name server anyway.

Doesn't this all take a lot of time? Yes, which is why all resolvers cache information. In reality they will rarely have to go out and talk to a root server because the addresses of the ".com" servers will be in memory. For a popular domain like Yahoo they may not even have to talk to the ".com" servers much, because the addresses of the yahoo.com servers will be cached. Each domain's admin chooses how long the information will remain cached.

Longer times reduce network traffic and make things faster for users, but cause trouble if a server moves. This caching, in addition to the amount of time it takes to get a change processed by a registrar, is what can make moving a web site a pain. During a transition period some people will get new information from the net while others will still have old, cached information. This period lasts a minimum of two days -- that's how long the .com servers specify for all second-level domains to remain cached. In the worst case it drags out for months, as buggy caches don't expire when they're supposed to.

National domains

Everything above applies equally to any domain. However, the registrar for each top-level domain can have a different policy about who gets to register. Most national domains are not first-come, first-served (until arbitration at least) like .com is. Many may require residence. We can work with most, but here are some trouble spots that we know of:

.de

You need a local ISP to register your domain for you. Their requirements change all the time, although they've gotten easier to work with over the years.

.fr

Currently we hear that we can handle these domains with a small setup change on our servers. While we haven't made this change yet, it would be no problem when we get our first request to host a .fr domain. Previously we had thought we would need to set up a special server. If that turned out to be true we could do it, but it might cost a bit.

.it

You need a local ISP to register your domain for you. They charge a bundle to register domains.

.uk

You need a local ISP to register your domain for you. They only work with UK ISPs.

In any case, we require that you handle everything for registration. We'll run the nameservers; getting the domain registered is your task. Anyone who would like to help us work with these registrars can contact us -- we can discuss terms.

Questions?