[Support Guide] DNS Quick Start - How to set up DNS

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Last reviewed: June 2024

Note: All options discussed in this guide assume you have already added your custom domain to your Netlify site.

Hi there! Need to get your site up and running with DNS? Start here with either Newly purchased domain or Existing domain that you’ve already used.

Newly purchased domain

If you have a brand new domain purchased from a registrar such as Namecheap or GoDaddy, and you want to quickly get your DNS set up, you have two options:

  1. External DNS - Create these two DNS records at your registrar:

    Type Name Value
    A @ 75.2.60.5
    CNAME www mysite.netlify.app

    The value for mysite is your site name on Netlify, for example, brave-curie-671954. If you renamed your netlify site, use that instead.

Note: If your DNS provider allows adding ALIAS , ANAME , or flattened CNAME records, you’ll want to use one of those instead of an A record and point the record to apex-loadbalancer.netlify.com. If your provider does not allow these types of records, you can use an A record pointed to 75.2.60.5 as shown above.

  1. Netlify DNS - Switch from using your registrar’s name servers to using Netlify’s. To do this, you’ll create a DNS Zone at Netlify. In the Netlify UI, navigate to your site and go to Domain Management —> Production domains. Click the Options button to the right of your custom name and select Set up Netlify DNS. There, scroll down to see your four nameservers. Write down the names and URLs of those name servers, then head over to your registrar and change the nameservers listed in your registrar’s dashboard to those you just copied from Netlify.

You’re done! Now we wait, as these changes won’t take effect immediately. Changes to DNS records can take up to 48 hours to propagate and take effect for the entire internet - worldwide! You can check your progress using this tool. See this Support Guide for more info on why it really can take this long: [Support Guide] Why do DNS / SSL changes take up to 48 hours to propagate? (TTL)

Feel like it should have been propagated already? If it hasn’t yet been 24-48 hours, please wait a little longer before creating a new post. We cannot speed up this process for you, sadly. Many DNS issues fix themselves with a little patience, and if it has not yet been 48 hours we will likely ask you to wait before we investigate.

Existing domain that you’ve already used

We recommend option 1 above, External DNS.

However, if you want to use Netlify DNS instead, you totally can. You’ll need to copy all existing DNS records to Netlify before changing the name server records to point to Netlify, especially if you have an email service configured for it like GSuite. Please read this Support Guide for more details about copying existing DNS records to Netlify: [Support Guide] How do I migrate a domain to Netlify Managed DNS with zero downtime?

One other scenario: Domain purchased through Netlify

If you purchased your new domain through Netlify it will already have Netlify DNS enabled! So you are all set. :tada:

In Conclusion

Not sure which to use? Check out this Support Guide: [Support Guide] Should I use Netlify to manage my DNS?

Additional resources and definitions

Note that we have compiled a listing of all of our DNS related content, so if you have more questions after reading the above, they are likely addressed in one of the posts linked in this article.

Links to some registrars’ DNS instructions

EXTERNAL DNS - ADDING RECORDS

GoDaddy A records

GoDaddy CNAME records

Namecheap A records

Namecheap CNAME records

NETLIFY DNS - CHANGING NAMESERVERS

GoDaddy

Namecheap

1 Like
8

Hi,
We are trying to setp DNS records at gabia.com But they are accepting only A, MX, CNAME, TXT and SRV only, not NS records. So how can i get the A record.

I think CNAME is, enposs.netlify.app But when i set it as CNAME record, so it is expecting dot(.) at end which is not right.

Appreciate if you can help us quickly

DNS
DNS1348×696 61.1 KB

9

HI, @venukommu. Actually, all fully qualified domain names always end in a trailing dot but … web browsers never show it. The dot is there though.

Web browsers distort reality in many ways (much to my frustration) and this is one of the ways they do so. For example, many browsers (*cough* Chrome *cough*) also hide the www and the https:// from URLs when they are actually really there.

For example, if I make a query for example.com the answer will be for example.com. with a trailing dot. Here is an example:

$ dig +noall +answer example.com
example.com.		1069	IN	A	93.184.216.34

To summarize, do enter the CNAME for enposs.netlify.app. (with the trailing dot) as this is definitely the correct thing to do with your DNS service.

I added “with your DNS service” because all DNS services have slightly different web UIs so this won’t be true for everyone. Trust me though, behind the scenes inside the DNS responses themselves, the trailing dot is really always there. The web UIs, however, may or may not show the trailing dot. It just depends on what each particular service does.

10

Dear Luke,
Thank you very much for explaining me in detail about trailing dot. Appreciate your patience. Anyway already we have added CNAME Yesterday, but i think only CNAME is not sufficient. We are looking for A record also, i think we need to setup A record with IP address. How can i get IP address for enposs.netlify.app

Appreciate your quick help.
Thank you very much
Venu Kommu

11

Hi, @venukommu. This information is found here:

Quoting:

  1. Find your DNS provider’s DNS record settings for your apex domain, such as petsofnetlify.com .
  2. Add an A record . Depending on your provider, leave the host field empty or enter @ .
  3. Point the record to Netlify’s load balancer IP address: 75.2.60.5
  4. Save your settings. It may take a full day for the settings to propagate across the global Domain Name System.

If there are other questions, please let us know.

36

Hi,

This is my first reply to any post, so I apologize if I am hitting the wrong ‘reply’ button.

I am trying to setup External DNS. I think I am close to having things setup correctly…but may be missing something. I did my best to read through the ‘External DNS doc’ as well as ‘GoDaddy A records’ and GoDaddy CNAME record’.

These are my current results:

GoDaddy_DNS010142023
GoDaddy_DNS0101420231358×542 24.1 KB

Netlify shows:

  • Netlify subdomain (works: patriot-ac.netlify.app)
  • primary domain: ‘Awaiting External DNS’
  • www..com: Netlify DNS

Did I need to provide that CNAME in GoDaddy, or should that just be the primary domain i bought through GoDaddy?

37

@FulphilledDev It looks like your site is successfully up-and-running using external DNS. That being said, you have a Netlify DNS zone set up that is not currently in use. I’d recommend deleting that DNS Zone if you’re intending to use external DNS, as it can cause issues down the line.

39

Thank you for the timely response!

Did you mean that I should delete the two production domains I added in Netlify, which would result in only having the default ‘.netlify.app’ domain? That is what I just did, and left the other values ‘as is’ in my previous screenshot from GoDaddy.

40

@FulphilledDev If you wish to use a custom domain, you’ll want to keep the domain in the production domains section. What I meant was if you’re using external DNS, when you add the domain do not choose the option to enable Netlify DNS.