Godaddy DNS -> Netlify

I have searched the forum and am looking for verification that I have completed this process properly & would be grateful for any help.

I wish to point my domain, beauhaus.net, registered with Godaddy(“GD”) to my Netlify account.

I have added Netlify nameservers through the GD UI and have re-confirmed that they are correct in the GD UI.

I am aware of the delay in propagation and will be patient. I have tried this a couple of times and it has failed me, however.

I am uncertain of whether I have properly filled in the records & would be grateful if someone could acertain whether I’m screwing this up.

My records entered in the Netlify UI are as follows:

If it’s helpful at all, there is an “export zone file (in Unix)” link at the bottom of the GD domain page. Clicking on it reveals the following record info.

`
; SOA Record
beauhaus.net. 3600 IN SOA ns05.domaincontrol.com. dns.jomax.net. (
2019102203
28800
7200
604800
3600
)

; A Records
@ 600 IN A 50.63.202.32

; CNAME Records
www 3600 IN CNAME @
_domainconnect 3600 IN CNAME _domainconnect.gd.domaincontrol.com.

; MX Records

; TXT Records

; SRV Records

; AAAA Records

; CAA Records

; NS Records
@ 3600 IN NS ns05.domaincontrol.com.
@ 3600 IN NS ns06.domaincontrol.com.
`

dns propagation checker seems to reveal some changes taking place

https://www.whatsmydns.net/#A/beauhaus.net

I am ignorant, though, of the whether they are the proper changes.

Specifically, I wonder whether I have added the cname _domainconnect.gd.domaincontrol.com. in error & I wonder if this entry warrants suspicion.

If I have, in fact, “pooped the bed” again in my effort to point my domain to Netlify… I wonder whether I ought to delete any of these records–or the entire dns zone–and start again.

Thank you so much, in advance, for any guidance you can offer.

I will post progress in this if there is any dramatic change–for better or worse so that it might help someone else in the community.

(I have to do this several times for several domains this week :roll_eyes:)

Cheers

Okay, Hello All…

Reporting back, here.

I have tried another domain name using Netlify DNS.
Placed the 4 nameservers at GD and have been given an SSL cert

(…which is great, and let’sencrypt have really helpful forums. They definitely deserve a donation.)

[Donate - Let's Encrypt](Let’s Encrypt)

Having chosen Netlify DNS, my Netlify DNS Panel looks to be configured like this:

It has been 7 hours (for this domain)… So far I’ve
Gone into terminal to check whose servers it’s connected to:
bash-5.0$ curl -s -v http://www.recessct.com 2>&1 | grep Server < Server: Netlify
& that is great!

I’ve been to
https://www.whatsmydns.net

I’ve done dig commands in my terminal producing the following for A and CNAME
`bash-5.0$ dig recessct.com CNAME +noall +answer

; <<>> DiG 9.10.6 <<>> recessct.com CNAME +noall +answer
;; global options: +cmd
bash-5.0$ dig recessct.com A +noall +answer

; <<>> DiG 9.10.6 <<>> recessct.com A +noall +answer
;; global options: +cmd
recessct.com. 1 IN A 142.93.122.177
`

So far, I’m getting an error in my cert…

I can’t tell if I’ve screwed this up or am on the right track.

If anyone spots a red-flag in what I’m doing, I’d really appreciate it.

I have to do this a few more times with other Domains from GD and would really like some verification of whether I’m doing this properly.

Thank you!

RPW

Hello,

Having tried the approaches above, I have failed to get a successful DNS hookup with Netlify.

I have yet, one more externally registered DNS that I can redirect to my Netlify build:

I am considering the redirect/rewrite option at this helpful doc.

Is it possible to force a rewrite of the entire URL with the _redirects file?

_redirects
https://rpw-ref4.netlify.com/ myClientsSite.com
Would this be a viable solution?

I would really be grateful if anyone could help.

Thank you.

Hello!

I’m reporting back for posterity.

It has been over 24 hours and boom! One URL is working! :tada: and it’s wonderful. Thank you, Netlify!

I have one more DNS to point over to my build. I plan on using Netlify DNS again…since it was successful.

This DNS has a few MX records and txt records. Trying to go through this step-wise and there’s a really helpful thread posted here:

.

I will report back.

Hi, @rpw. I love DNS questions and I’ll do my best to answer these. I’m going to address each domain separately.

Before I go into details, I want to clarify one key aspect of working with DNS at Netlify - we we can and cannot help with.

What we can do! :slight_smile:

  • troubleshoot issues with Netlify DNS
  • check the correctness of DNS records for services hosted at Netlify
  • help get records entered into our Netlify DNS service
  • track down the point of failure for external DNS services (Netlify or not Netlify)

What we cannot do.

  • check the correctness of DNS records for any service not hosted at Netlify
  • troubleshoot the internals of third-party systems

The point I am making is, if you have a DNS record for a service we are not providing and don’t have any information about - we have no way of knowing if this is the “correct” record.

So, for any third-party services, you will need to contact those services or consult their documentation to determine the correct values.

Once correct values are known, we are absolutely happy to troubleshoot the entry of the records themselves as well as the checking that the DNS service is answering correctly for any records configured with our service.

Enough caveats! On to answers!

beauhaus.net

For this domain, I do show the Netlify DNS enabled. One of the best ways to check this is by querying the whois record and seeing the name servers returned there:

$ whois beauhaus.net | grep -i "name server"
   Name Server: DNS1.P02.NSONE.NET
   Name Server: DNS2.P02.NSONE.NET
   Name Server: DNS3.P02.NSONE.NET
   Name Server: DNS4.P02.NSONE.NET
Name Server: DNS1.P02.NSONE.NET
Name Server: DNS2.P02.NSONE.NET
Name Server: DNS3.P02.NSONE.NET
Name Server: DNS4.P02.NSONE.NET

Another good check in using dig with the +trace option. This does a recursive lookup from the top-level domain (TLD) name servers down to the authoritative server for the domain. Also, +trace lookup answers will often differ from a standard query (which will not use the authoritative DNS server directly). These differences often are the key to revealing a root cause for DNS issues.

The <CUT - TEXT REMOVED> indicates removed lines from the output which showed the TLD answers. The remaining lookup is a response from a TLD name server (l.gtld-servers.net) and then the authoritative server for

$ dig beauhaus.net NS +trace

<CUT - TEXT REMOVED>
;; Received 1169 bytes from 199.7.83.42#53(l.root-servers.net) in 32 ms

beauhaus.net.		172800	IN	NS	dns1.p02.nsone.net.
beauhaus.net.		172800	IN	NS	dns2.p02.nsone.net.
beauhaus.net.		172800	IN	NS	dns3.p02.nsone.net.
beauhaus.net.		172800	IN	NS	dns4.p02.nsone.net.
A1RT98BS5QGC9NFI51S9HCI47ULJG6JH.net. 86400 IN NSEC3 1 1 0 - A1RUUFFJKCT2Q54P78F8EJGJ8JBK7I8B  NS SOA RRSIG DNSKEY NSEC3PARAM
A1RT98BS5QGC9NFI51S9HCI47ULJG6JH.net. 86400 IN RRSIG NSEC3 8 2 86400 20191030061324 20191023050324 36407 net. FL85OYk++rt2usgp3123/tt4nn05+L4hy73ZuYqatEhBiuNKWaGN9zIX 4yRKHIvMT0cDivs+G+ourg/y96hn1A7g+gPCv06KDCOm0o7RxGUkxNH7 MTmlUr4o0eG1MSiNoG0IykABL7sZ04JyyglIR1OWjYXZMa8HLn56mFb1 bss0+pYew4We1T1Sz3GSphFyRjnT9GNzhBdHNuSDhwwxSQ==
BUAI40VRFU38FICVNE835GMPV965GMAT.net. 86400 IN NSEC3 1 1 0 - BUB1E70EU453Q0PD3SA3MB8Q86Q28DG5  NS DS RRSIG
BUAI40VRFU38FICVNE835GMPV965GMAT.net. 86400 IN RRSIG NSEC3 8 2 86400 20191030060727 20191023045727 36407 net. P4GiW/xiHFNj31P1zSEQBTkOHtazOiIgWLnFSnj8c/pa/lwoICmx+w9J E9WkEenTbfmgVKYx/f+aNrwcOOOK6FWWFkib3zeT/X7TPiUZl/DLCXdz bWnhUoROynkKPOpZIoFh5IYydTUOv79RjJPnd+dxxR3ksNBssFLvq0LK 4Oc0sSpQozH7kbkJnRX1zUZdhmU4P+qXHmyllUb0+mDDbw==
;; Received 740 bytes from 192.41.162.30#53(l.gtld-servers.net) in 17 ms

beauhaus.net.		3600	IN	NS	ns06.domaincontrol.com.
beauhaus.net.		3600	IN	NS	ns05.domaincontrol.com.
beauhaus.net.		3600	IN	NS	dns1.p02.nsone.net.
beauhaus.net.		3600	IN	NS	dns2.p02.nsone.net.
beauhaus.net.		3600	IN	NS	dns3.p02.nsone.net.
beauhaus.net.		3600	IN	NS	dns4.p02.nsone.net.
;; Received 182 bytes from 198.51.45.2#53(dns2.p02.nsone.net) in 16 ms

This shows something interesting. The top level DNS server (l.gtld-servers.net) shows four name server (NS) record for this domain:

beauhaus.net.		172800	IN	NS	dns1.p02.nsone.net.
beauhaus.net.		172800	IN	NS	dns2.p02.nsone.net.
beauhaus.net.		172800	IN	NS	dns3.p02.nsone.net.
beauhaus.net.		172800	IN	NS	dns4.p02.nsone.net.

But the Netlify controlled name server shows six name servers:

beauhaus.net.		3600	IN	NS	ns06.domaincontrol.com.
beauhaus.net.		3600	IN	NS	ns05.domaincontrol.com.
beauhaus.net.		3600	IN	NS	dns1.p02.nsone.net.
beauhaus.net.		3600	IN	NS	dns2.p02.nsone.net.
beauhaus.net.		3600	IN	NS	dns3.p02.nsone.net.
beauhaus.net.		3600	IN	NS	dns4.p02.nsone.net.

However, those top two (ns05 and ns06) will never be used. Those two records can be deleted in Netlify DNS.

There are two other records I want to mention. First this one:

beauhaus.net.		600	IN	A	50.63.202.32

This is an A record pointing the bare domain to an IP address (something outside of Netlify). It is definitely okay to do this at Netlify (or any other DNS service provider as far as I know) but whether or not this is correct - that is something only you can answer.

The second record is this one:

_domainconnect.beauhaus.net. 3600 IN	CNAME	_domainconnect.gd.domaincontrol.com.

This looks like a verification record needed for web hosting done by the domain registrar. It isn’t related to Netlify’s services and isn’t required by us. So, just like the A record above, only you can say if this is needed or not. My best guess is that it is not currently needed. On the other hand, if you do still have a website for this domain (or one of its subdomains like blog.beauhaus.net) also hosted at GD it could still be.

recessct.com

This looks to be working correctly at this time. When moving any domain name to Netlify DNS, the biggest factor affecting changed is the time to live (TTL) value in the name server (NS) records before those records are changed.

It is not uncommon for NS records to have values of 86400, which is the time that other name servers should cache this record in seconds. If one “does the math”, 86400 is 24 hours. NS records with this TTL will take 24 hours to expire and so the new record won’t take effect for that long. Often, this is when a dig example.com NS and a dig example.com NS +trace (both) are helpful and the differences between the two will show that caching is the root cause.

Many people rely on Google for DNS. In these cases, it can be helpful to try clearing their public DNS cache for your NS records here:

Other thoughts

I’m not sure if you still need this rule or not:

https://rpw-ref4.netlify.com/ myClientsSite.com

The correct syntax for such a rule would be:

https://rpw-ref4.netlify.com/* https://myclientssite.com/:splat 301!

(I removed the capital letters because domain names ignore case.)

This rule would would cause any request for that Netlify site to be restarted at the same path but at the new domain name.

However, in most cases, if you just wanted to direct traffic for that domain to some other site, you would make DNS record (wherever DNS is configured) point the domain where you wanted it to go and just delete the Netlify site. Why have a site at Netlify at all if all traffic is just directed elsewhere?

Again, though, I think you probably are past needing this. I just wanted to cover the details, though, in case such a rule is needed in the future.

Redirect and rewrites are very useful and there is more information about them here:

Also, if you are moving DNS service to Netlify, there is information about how to avoid downtime here:

And for changes to the hosting of existing site, there are more details about minimizing downtime here:

If there are other question, we’re happy to follow-up again.

2 Likes

Good Lord…

Extremely helpful information…

I feel like my IQ just jumped a couple of points.

I’m going to take a very close look at this… @luke & @laura… Thank you so much for both of your help and encouragement.

I’m very lucky to have your help and am immensely grateful.

Cheers,

I will continue to report back when my problems are solved.

Best wishes

gt

It’s WORKING. It’s working!

Thank you!

1 Like

Hi @rpw good that is working for you.
I have a question I DO change the name server names before copying the dns records from GoDaddy to Netlify. Now my only issue is the SSL certificate, is already several hours and netlify is telling me that my custom domain appears not to be served by netlify, BUT doing a curl -s -v http://customDomain.com 2>&1 | grep Server I have a < Server: Netlify answer. What could be the problem here? Is just a matter of time until the propagation?
thank you so much any leads in this.

1 Like

Hi @davidberco!

I answered your question in your other post. Basically, it can take up to 24 hours for DNS to propagate, sometimes even longer. Ping us back if you still don’t have a certificate after 24 hours and we can look in to it.

1 Like