Your own domain

How the move works

Your domain stays registered where it is — mesh-net isn't a registrar. What moves is its DNS: mesh-net's name servers start answering for the domain, and from then on you edit its records and set up DDNS in the dashboard. The move goes in four steps, shown at the top of the domain's page:

1. Ownership — you prove the domain is yours with a TXT record at your current DNS provider.
2. Records — mesh-net collects the domain's current records; you check them, add what's missing and create the zone.
3. Name servers — at your registrar you replace the domain's name servers with mesh-net's.
4. Active — the registry lists mesh-net's name servers; the domain is served from here.

Until the last step nothing changes for the domain: the world keeps asking your current DNS provider.

Statuses

Add the domain

1. Open Domains and scroll to Your own domain.
2. Press Add your domain, enter the domain itself, like example.com or example.co.uk, and press Add your domain in the form.

• Only the registered domain is accepted, not a subdomain: www.example.com is a record inside the zone of example.com.
• A public suffix (co.uk) and reserved names (.local, .test, .internal…) aren't domains.
• mesh-net's own zones are not added here — their names are claimed above on the same page.
• A domain already verified by another mesh-net account can't be added. An unverified claim, though, holds nothing: if someone added your domain and never verified it, add it anyway — whoever proves ownership first gets it, and the other claims close.
• The domain takes one place in your limit of names from the moment it is added.

Step 1: prove ownership

The domain's page shows a TXT record to create at your current DNS provider (wherever the domain's records are now):

1. Create the record at your provider. Some providers want only the first part of the name: _mesh-net-verify.
2. Wait a couple of minutes and press Verify. mesh-net asks several public DNS resolvers; most of them must see the record with exactly this value.
3. If the record isn't visible yet, wait a little and press Verify again. A message that the record has a different value means a typo — copy the value from the page once more.

Once ownership is confirmed, mesh-net collects the current records right away, and the TXT record is no longer needed (you can remove it later).

Step 2: check the records

Public DNS doesn't let anyone list all names of a zone, so mesh-net asks it about the domain itself and about common names: www, mail, autodiscover, mail and DKIM TXT records, popular SRV services and others. What it finds becomes the list of drafts under Check the records.

• Missing names — the ones only you know about — add with Add record above the list (name or @, type, value, TTL) or upload a zone file.
• The switch in a record's row takes it into the zone or leaves it out (its hint says Skip or Include); a skipped record is crossed out. The pencil (Edit) opens the record's form right under its row, the bin (Delete) deletes it.
• Collect again from public DNS re-reads public DNS: the records it found earlier are replaced by what it finds now, and the ones you added by hand, uploaded from a file or edited stay. A found record you skipped comes back included — skip it again.
• If the domain has a wildcard record (*), names that exist only through it are left out — the wildcard itself is enough.
• The domain's own NS and SOA records are set by mesh-net: ns1.mesh-net.space, ns2.mesh-net.space.

Upload a zone file

Most DNS providers can export the zone as a text file in BIND format — the most reliable way to bring every record. Under Upload a zone file choose the file (up to 512 KB) and press Upload. Its records join the list; a message says what was skipped and why: the SOA and the domain's NS (mesh-net sets its own), records outside the domain, unsupported types, DNSSEC records, repeats. $INCLUDE and $GENERATE aren't supported — put everything into one file and list the records one by one.

What a zone can hold

• Types A, AAAA, CNAME, MX, NS, TXT, SRV and CAA. Names: @ for the domain itself, names under it, and * wildcards.
• Several records with the same name and type are fine — two TXT values or several MX servers.
• A CNAME must be the only record of its name, and the domain itself (@) can't have a CNAME or NS. The page lists such conflicts; the zone can't be created until they're fixed.
• TTL from 60 to 86400 seconds; empty — 300.
• A TXT value is up to 4000 bytes; a zone holds up to 1000 records.

Step 3: create the zone

When the list is right, press Create the zone (N records) and confirm. The zone appears on mesh-net's name servers with exactly the included records plus mesh-net's SOA and NS; skipped drafts are dropped.

Step 4: change the name servers

1. If the page warns about DNSSEC, first turn DNSSEC off and wait a day.
2. Open the domain's settings at your registrar (where you bought it) and find its name servers (NS).
3. Replace all of them with these two:

   ns1.mesh-net.space
   ns2.mesh-net.space
   

4. Keep the records at your current DNS provider until the page says the domain is active: while the change spreads (up to 48 hours), both providers answer the same, so nothing breaks.

mesh-net checks the registry itself every 10 minutes and emails you when the domain becomes active. Check now checks at once and tells what the registry lists:

• other name servers — the change hasn't reached the registry yet; it usually takes up to an hour, sometimes up to 48 hours;
• some name servers still point elsewhere — keep only mesh-net's two;
• no name servers at all — check that the domain is registered and its NS are set.

DNSSEC and DS records

mesh-net doesn't sign zones. If DNSSEC is on for the domain, the registry holds DS records for it, and resolvers that check DNSSEC reject unsigned answers — the domain stops resolving once mesh-net serves it. The domain's page warns when it finds DS records.

An active domain

The domain's name servers point to mesh-net, and the records on its page are what the world sees. Edit them under Records of the zone: every change is published at once. The zone at your previous DNS provider is no longer used; keep it for another day or two while caches around the world update, then remove it there if you like. Check the name servers checks the delegation again.

Records and DDNS

Every A and AAAA record of the zone can be kept up to date by a router or server: in Dynamic DNS (DDNS) on the domain's page press Turn on DDNS. The setup is the same as for names in our zones — see Dynamic DNS.

Delete the domain

Delete the domain is at the bottom of the page, in Danger zone: press Delete and confirm. Before the zone exists, nothing has been published, and deleting just drops the claim. After the zone is created, deleting removes it from mesh-net's name servers.