Technical changes

1 How to request a name servers change

2 How to edit your zone file

3 How to enable or disable DNSSEC

4 Predelegation requirement and Zone Check

5 Zone templates

6 Predefined name servers

7 Web, email and social media forwarding

7.1 The different types of domain forwarding

7.2 Social media forwarding

7.3 Parking page

7.4 Email forwarding

How to request a name servers change

A domain name must have name servers for users to be able to access its associated website. And when users try to go to a website, their devices need to know where to find the requested content.

This is where the website’s IP address comes in. The address is then stored on a server: the name server.

Unless customers asked for different name servers, domain names registered with Netim have the following name servers by default:

ns1.netim.net
ns2.netim.net
ns3.netim.net

If you use our name servers, you’ll be able to edit your zone file through Netim Direct (see the “How to edit your zone file” tutorial below).

Note 💡

If you use another hosting provider, you might be asked to change your current name servers to theirs. Once the change has been made, you won’t be able to edit your zone file through your Netim Direct account.
It will take a few hours after a change has been made for your new DNS information to be propagated through the internet.

How to edit your zone file

A zone file is a text-based file stored on name servers. It contains your domain name configuration: where your website points to, which servers your emails go through, etc.

Important ⚠

You can only edit your zone file through Netim Direct if your website uses our name servers. If it doesn’t, you have to go through your DNS provider to edit your zone file.

You have the option to add/edit/delete DNS records when editing your zone file.

You need precise information to manipulate DNS records. The only reason you might be required to change your DNS settings is if Netim, or a service provider, gives your specific instructions to do so.

Important ⚠

It will take a few hours after a change has been made for your zone file information to be propagated through the internet.

The following DNS record types are supported:

A: holds the IPv4 address of a domain or sub-domain.
AAAA: holds the IPv6 address of a domain or sub-domain.

Note 💡

Wildcards are authorised on type A and AAAA registrations.

CNAME: holds the name of a sub-domain (which ultimately resolves to an IP address). This is not a redirect, as the sub-domain and the name share the same IP address (a CNAME record can only be added if the domain or sub-domain doesn’t have any other DNS record)
MX: specifies email servers for the domain. A number has to be assigned to each email server to define their order of priority. The smaller the number, the higher the priority.
TXT: holds a sequence of characters and is often used for SPF, DKIM and DMARC records or for domain ownership verifications.
SRV: complex record used by specific service providers (Microsoft for Office 365). The provider’s instructions have to be followed to the letter.
CAA: holds a sequence of characters. The Certification Authority uses CAA records to know which entities are authorised to deliver SSL certificates for the domain.

How to enable or disable DNSSEC

Name servers make the link between a domain name and an IP address. An IP address is the number your browser needs to be able to display your website’s contents.

DNS has vulnerabilities that are exploited by cybercriminals to lead users to a different website than the one they requested.

That’s why DNSSEC was created: to prevent those problems. It secures communications between devices with an encrypted key and authenticates DNS requests.

Important ⚠

DNSSEC is not available for all extensions (go to the list).

Note 💡

If you’re in the process of transferring a DNSSEC-enabled domain, you need to be very careful when entering your name servers information. If you edit your name servers settings and break the DNSSEC chain, your domain name will become unreachable.
Please feel free to contact customer support to be guided through the transfer process.

There are several options to enable DNSSEC:

You would like to use Netim servers

In that case, all you have to do is enable or disable the DNSSEC option. Netim will automatically create keys to sign your DNS zone and send the necessary DS keys to the Registry. To enable or disable DNSSEC, simply follow this steps:

Log in to your Netim Direct account
Click on “My domains” in the “Domain names” menu
Click on the relevant domain name
Click on the “Summary” section and then on the “DNSSEC” toggle button

You would like to use other servers

If you are using the name servers provided by your hosting provider and they have signed your zone, then they will need to provide you with the DNSSEC information so that you can send it to us via the provided form.

Expected fields are :

Keytag: a number
Algorithm: a number
Encryption type: 1 (SHA-1), 2 (SHA-256), 3 (GOST R 34.11-94), 4 (SHA-384)
Digest: a string of characters (your public key)

Predelegation requirement and Zone Check

Depending on the Registry, your domain DNS zone might be required to pass a Registry check when you register or update a domain.

In other words: your domain name must resolve on the internet.

Example: the .is Registry will only allow you to register netim.is (name servers: ns1.netim.net and ns2.netim.net) if the given name servers are already answering DNS queries for netim.is.

Important ⚠

Here are some examples of TLDs with that requirement: .br, .de, .dk, .fi, .gw, .hu, .ie, .it, .lu, .my, .net.za, .no, .org.za, .pt, .si, .web.za, .za

Registries of these TLDs require nameservers to be set up for your domain before you attempt to register it.

You can check your DNS zone setup is in compliance with Registries’ requirements using our tool: Zone Check

Zone Check displays a “Success” message?
You can register or update your domain name!
Zone Check displays a “Warning” message?
The error won’t prevent you from registering or updating your domain name.
Zone Check displays a “Failed” message?
Your DNS zone is not properly set up for that domain on the requested name servers or the requested name servers are not in compliance with the Registry’s requirements.

If the Zone Check displays a “Failed” message, additional steps might need to be taken:

If you’re using Netim name servers: not to worry, Netim will set up the DNS zone before going through with your domain name registration or update. If you’re still encountering a Zone Check error, please contact our customer support team.
If you’re using external name servers: you’ll have to reach out to your service provider so that they can set up your DNS zone.

Zone templates

A zone template contains zone file settings: it’s a list of DNS records you can save and use to configure your domain names.

As an example, you could create the following zone template:

@ IN NS ns1.netim.com
@ IN NS ns2.netim.com
@ IN NS ns3.netim.com
@ IN MX 10 mx1.netim.com
@ IN MX 10 mx2.netim.com
@ IN A 185.26.105.244
www IN CNAME netim.com

And then save it. Once saved, it can be easily applied to another domain.

Once the zone template has been applied, you’ll end up for the following DNS zone for the “example.fr” domain:

example.fr IN NS ns1.netim.com
example.fr IN NS ns2.netim.com
example.fr IN NS ns3.netim.com
example.fr IN MX 10 mx1.netim.com
example.fr IN MX 10 mx2.netim.com
example.fr IN A 185.26.105.244
www.example.fr IN CNAME netim.com

Predefined name servers

Predefined name servers allow you to create and store name server lists, which can then be applied to your domain names.
To create predefined name server lists:

Log in to your Netim Direct account
Click on “Predefined DNS” in the left menu
Click on “Create a new list”
Enter your name servers and click on “Create”

You can now apply this predefined name server list to your domain names. To do so:

Log in to your Netim Direct account
Go to the “My domains” tab in the left menu
Click on the domain name of your choice to display its settings
Go to the “DNS management” window and click on “DNS change”
Click on “Use my predefined name servers” to associate your list of predefined servers with your domain name

Web, email and social media forwarding

The different types of domain forwarding

Our web forwarding service is included for free with all your domain name registrations. It makes it possible to redirect domain names to a URL.

For example, you could redirect from www.netim.com to www.netim.fr
Once the redirect is set up, users typing www.netim.com in their address bar will be directed to www.netim.fr instead.

You can access the forwarding control panel by doing the following:

Log in to your Netim Direct account
Select “My domains” in the left menu
Click on the domain you would like to redirect and on “Web forwarding”

Important ⚠

Your domain or sub-domain has to point to our forwarding server for redirects to be set up.

Types of forwarding	What the user types	Website	URL in the address bar	SEO score
Permanent redirect (301)	www.netim.com	www.netim.fr	www.netim.fr	www.netim.fr indexed
Temporary redirect (302)	www.netim.com	www.netim.fr	www.netim.fr	www.netim.com indexed
Masked redirect (URL frame)	www.netim.com	www.netim.fr	www.netim.com	Bad for SEO

301 and 302 redirects are unmasked: when users try to access netim.com, they will be redirected to netim.fr and their address bars will display netim.fr instead of netim.com.
With masked redirects, the source website is executed in a frame, so the address bar still displays netim.com instead of netim.fr.

Note 💡

A masked redirection will negatively affect your SEO (Search Engine Optimization)
More and more websites don’t support URL frames anymore. That’s we recommend using unmasked redirects rather than URL frames

The “Do not pass query parameters (advanced)” option makes it possible for every page on your website to be redirected to the same URL.

If you redirect www.netim.com to ww.netim.fr, the query parameters are passed by default.

So when you try to access netim.com/test, you’ll be redirected to netim.fr/test

However, if you choose to enable the “Do not pass query parameters (advanced)” option, any source URL will direct users to the URL you picked when setting up your redirect.

So if you try to access netim.com/test, you’ll be redirected to netim.fr and not netim.fr/test

Social media forwarding

This type of forwarding allows you to redirect users to your social network profiles.

We offer redirects to most social networks: LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Youtube, GitHub and Twitch.

You can access the forwarding control panel by doing the following:

Log in to your Netim Direct account
Select “My domains” in the left menu
Click on the domain you would like to redirect and on “Web forwarding”

Parking page

A parking page allows you to display content while you wait for your site to go live. Netim displays a message on your parking page by default. If you would like to customise this message, simply go to the “Add a redirect” tab and input your HTML code in the relevant window.

You can access the forwarding control panel by doing the following:

Log in to your Netim Direct account
Select “My domains” in the left menu
Click on the domain you would like to redirect and on “Web forwarding”

Email forwarding

Our email forwarding service is included for free with all your domain name registrations.

For example, if my domain is www.netim.fr, I can create a forwarding email address, contact@netim.fr, and redirect it to me@gmail.com.

Every email sent to contact@netim.fr will then go through our forwarding servers and end up in the me@gmail.com inbox.

Important ⚠

Your domain has to use our default email servers for redirects to be set up.
Forwarding email addresses do not have their own inboxes: you can’t access emails sent to a forwarding address via a webmail service, set up an IMAP/POP/SMTP account or send emails from the forwarding email address.
If you would like to create regular domain-based email addresses, you can do so with our hosting plans.