Trying to point domain from Digital Ocean to Netlify. No domain found

I recently moved a build of our site to netlify servers, and it’s looking good (filamentgroup.netlify.app).

I want to point our domain at that next, which we own over at Digital Ocean:

In the DO panel, I added the 4 nameservers that netlify provided for my site. After a weekend, it didn’t propagate, so today I tried adding some A records for the domains that correspond with each nameserver. I did this after reading [Support Guide] Finding the IP addresses for Netlify's nameservers

I’m still seeing the site offline. I’ve since deleted those A records and added a cname. I put an A record back up to point to our old host until I can figure out what IP I should have in there… Do I need an A Record?

Would really love some advice.

Thanks much!
Scott

hi there!

I am seeing this today when i pull up filamentgroup.com

is this what you were expecting to see?

Hi @perry

Thanks for taking a look. Sorry my question is a little confusing. I pointed the A record back at the IP of our old host again until I could figure out where it should point instead. So yes, it should look mostly like that, but when it’s pointed at Netlify, we’ll know because the homepage animation is a lot faster. https://filamentgroup.netlify.app/

So, I guess I’m in need of advice for what records I should add to my domain in digital ocean in addition to the 4 NS records that netlify provided. At first, I followed a netlify community article above to generate A records for the corresponding IP addresses of each of the 4 netlify nameservers. that didn’t do it though… the domain still wasn’t pointing at an IP address. I also tried adding a CNAME for www. Again, didn’t seem to help.

Do I need an A record and if so, where should it point?

I’d love any thoughts you might have. Thanks!
Scott

Hi, @Filament, I’m seeing that the name servers (NS records) for the Netlify DNS were added at the existing name server for this domain.

Instead what is needed is for the existing domains name server to be replaced by the one for Netlify DNS.

Here is a traced/recursive lookup for this domain name:

$ dig filamentgroup.com NS  +trace

; <<>> DiG 9.10.6 <<>> filamentgroup.com NS +trace
;; global options: +cmd
.			86332	IN	NS	e.root-servers.net.
.			86332	IN	NS	h.root-servers.net.
.			86332	IN	NS	l.root-servers.net.
.			86332	IN	NS	i.root-servers.net.
.			86332	IN	NS	a.root-servers.net.
.			86332	IN	NS	d.root-servers.net.
.			86332	IN	NS	c.root-servers.net.
.			86332	IN	NS	b.root-servers.net.
.			86332	IN	NS	j.root-servers.net.
.			86332	IN	NS	k.root-servers.net.
.			86332	IN	NS	g.root-servers.net.
.			86332	IN	NS	m.root-servers.net.
.			86332	IN	NS	f.root-servers.net.
.			86332	IN	RRSIG	NS 8 0 518400 20200505050000 20200422040000 48903 . SpOIowr6/n2bsKkr7XiRe1J5gPmH9Vt00YGzLBDZt7CPm1nDjjzxSp9V y5dRz+g0COnmbEb4WklQXRZ3aus9Qo08k0GP8rspM3/g2hHml8FR5bv0 Jvde8Y6n/bQl5+f47/dCmw84wLYbf+ziW6vrL7rwkVl1foXnKMiVjuGF r+DsduOW8S3KSPqrKCFsvIS4kWoNQKRcn9iDKPuZijC3cPhIUpIiQn4N dFHG6uSNGbb9N3Jp4LV0L/IO2jiAfIsIW+K0t7KPZtqwa6KSDri+hxf8 cESHz3AsQkICj4CuKU2R+egnADhrsiaKNVcozYofCuw6B7TKtuG9rQAz aFN4xQ==
;; Received 525 bytes from 8.8.8.8#53(8.8.8.8) in 18 ms

com.			172800	IN	NS	a.gtld-servers.net.
com.			172800	IN	NS	b.gtld-servers.net.
com.			172800	IN	NS	c.gtld-servers.net.
com.			172800	IN	NS	d.gtld-servers.net.
com.			172800	IN	NS	e.gtld-servers.net.
com.			172800	IN	NS	f.gtld-servers.net.
com.			172800	IN	NS	g.gtld-servers.net.
com.			172800	IN	NS	h.gtld-servers.net.
com.			172800	IN	NS	i.gtld-servers.net.
com.			172800	IN	NS	j.gtld-servers.net.
com.			172800	IN	NS	k.gtld-servers.net.
com.			172800	IN	NS	l.gtld-servers.net.
com.			172800	IN	NS	m.gtld-servers.net.
com.			86400	IN	DS	30909 8 2 E2D3C916F6DEEAC73294E8268FB5885044A833FC5459588F4A9184CF C41A5766
com.			86400	IN	RRSIG	DS 8 1 86400 20200506050000 20200423040000 48903 . Enqd4bffSJHlv8mqHcAptS9+fHo3cg6vCIQgrOZ3aBfx2nG4CjS27iEG 6u6NsPfcKVrz7RoU2xDtDMNJOcMBJdJe/lGNeo14N69SM0/MV2Z8wZBD HRPd2Y8Z1nyc7EnDbkFzuWV5G6vafaQa4KTQpG6jGOPIQpYESNiinxfy 0QQWUJELvjSOideCPqQcug2P2Pln7BzWiqFSg6I8d1h44349LsXcbr5W zJwZQJKLoDd0ysyGl5Bq3UZgfWYvTJFmmZ/OwKYT4QQ4BE0MtbVwae8X 9yI6d9jENsz+eebEEtxLt6o/LNQb3PdNhUH1PC1pxfHiEiNyYUcvbJdf Flgntg==
;; Received 1177 bytes from 198.97.190.53#53(h.root-servers.net) in 54 ms

filamentgroup.com.	172800	IN	NS	ns1.digitalocean.com.
filamentgroup.com.	172800	IN	NS	ns2.digitalocean.com.
filamentgroup.com.	172800	IN	NS	ns3.digitalocean.com.
CK0POJMG874LJREF7EFN8430QVIT8BSM.com. 86400 IN NSEC3 1 1 0 - CK0Q1GIN43N1ARRC9OSM6QPQR81H5M9A  NS SOA RRSIG DNSKEY NSEC3PARAM
CK0POJMG874LJREF7EFN8430QVIT8BSM.com. 86400 IN RRSIG NSEC3 8 2 86400 20200427045033 20200420034033 39844 com. BDAWMm4AsSRfrBwOXhNN8ihw++J2UkhEk8A6LeSIz1llDs5kt0CcOqTM OK1txlQNr3N0k1RTBW/hkEZ1mxjIHF2GARt/hpO43ILPBVs/vhKAKCKh A96XJG+NzN0t/heB6mFNASKAcmVdfT5a0tVkmmzhGktDp5ECdZAIFRhZ 8y6jxsUhGP7ZiN1AfFBi1cWeSth5FW4Btpy9RffVKg5lIA==
2M9RNRC69I3OHAKUNVJTPP58J1CG4QA5.com. 86400 IN NSEC3 1 1 0 - 2M9SHNCAUFDR50JIKFIFVDGUKJR2BSM8  NS DS RRSIG
2M9RNRC69I3OHAKUNVJTPP58J1CG4QA5.com. 86400 IN RRSIG NSEC3 8 2 86400 20200429055718 20200422044718 39844 com. o2Zge2ojBtIXhrz827GNX2dj9Z8jW9FPeCobdx6sJyMjrquZXWl72Gpn LwOpc7MPVLdpckGVo2Qu1WgO/JjK6gRkOLu/9oWbPW0wjDlJU/vY+7dr bfCCIi3Uhkgh3P8wjvhVTB0SElXZgPcu9ggxWV1k+104Q0xw7cIzB44u ZWUgIvWnmJortPhPvl94I+C7HjFgCM86GuRn2StNCbNojA==
;; Received 794 bytes from 192.48.79.30#53(j.gtld-servers.net) in 58 ms

filamentgroup.com.	1800	IN	NS	dns1.p03.nsone.net.
filamentgroup.com.	1800	IN	NS	dns2.p03.nsone.net.
filamentgroup.com.	1800	IN	NS	dns4.p03.nsone.net.
filamentgroup.com.	1800	IN	NS	dns3.p03.nsone.net.
;; Received 135 bytes from 198.41.222.173#53(ns3.digitalocean.com) in 33 ms

You can ignore everything above the ns1.digitalocean.com. lines. What this shows is that the name servers for the domain are these name servers:

filamentgroup.com.	172800	IN	NS	ns1.digitalocean.com.
filamentgroup.com.	172800	IN	NS	ns2.digitalocean.com.
filamentgroup.com.	172800	IN	NS	ns3.digitalocean.com.

If you ask those servers what the name servers for the domain are they will say the Netlify DNS name servers but, in reality, those name servers won’t ever be used because that isn’t the way DNS works. Another way to see this is to check the WHOIS records for the domain:

$ whois filamentgroup.com | egrep "^Name Server"
Name Server: ns1.digitalocean.com
Name Server: ns2.digitalocean.com
Name Server: ns3.digitalocean.com

It looks like this domain is registered via tucows.com. If so, you most likely need to be updating the name servers there (Tucows) and not at DigitalOcean.

Also, before moving to Netlify DNS, please make sure to copy all of your DNS records to Netlify before doing so. There is more about there here:

If there are other questions about changing the DNS name servers, please let us know.