Changing DNS

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Records are entered into the Novara DNS system from two general sources:

  1. The Novara Customer Management system
  2. The HSphere hosting control panel


Contents

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The NCM

The NCM is at https://ncm.novarait.com/

The login will be an email address and password

The NCM allows you to see all DNS records associated with domains attached to your profile.

It will allow you to add and change records entered via the NCM. It also lists records entered from HSphere, but those records are marked as being "owned" by HSphere and can only be changed from within the HSphere system.


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HSphere

HSphere is a packaged shared hosting platform which allow you to manage DNS records associated with domains hosted within it.

The login is a six to eight letter username and password.

By default, when domains are added it sets up the default DNS records needed to host a web and mail service for that domain.

HSphere does not list DNS records it doesn't 'know' about, this includes records added separately from the NCM.

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Which DNS Management Interface?

If you are not hosting a domain with us it is easier to use the NCM to manage your DNS. If you have hosting with us for the domain it is easiest to manage it through the hosting control panel.

The NCM view will show all DNS entries for a domain including those entered in the control panel. The control panel only shows entries entered via the control panel so it is best to stick to using one or the other.

In addition, it is worth noting that when a HSphere hosting account lapses and is deleted, any DNS records entered from that account will be deleted.

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Editing DNS Records in HSphere

To edit DNS in your HSphere account: log into your control panel at [1]

  1. Click on "Domains" in the quick access panel. If you have more than one domain in the control panel you will then be asked to select the domain you want.
  2. Click on the edit button beside DNS configuration.

If you turn off the mail service from within the control panel this will also delete any DNS entries pointing at the mail server. (N.B. taking this step is only recommended if you have an external mail server in place and operational as this removes not only the generic dns mail records but also mailboxes and any mail held therein on our systems.)

Please remember than any DNS entries added through the NCM interface will not show up here.

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Editing DNS Records in the NCM

To edit DNS in your NCM profile:

  1. Go to the NCM at [2] and enter your details.
  2. Then click on "Domain Names" and then select the extension of the domain you want to access and click on the "Active" option.
  3. Then beside your domain name click on the "Full Details" button.
  4. On the next page choose the option called "Click here to configure DNS".
  5. On the next page choose "Edit/View A records, CNAMEs, MX records"

DNS entries added in HSphere will be visible here but will not be changeable. For this reason it is best to stick to one interface or the other for making changes.

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Standard DNS Records

Our nameserver contains the following information for a domain.

  1. A records
  2. MX records
  3. CNAME records
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A Record (an IP address)

This tells the browser the IP address for the website. You will normally have a few A records, for example: 

 domain.com      80.93.17.10
 www.domain.com  80.93.17.10

and then if another part of the site goes to a different address: 

 shop.domain.com 80.93.17.64
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MX record (a mail exchanger record)

This decides what server e-mail is routed to. It is not an IP address, it is always in the format mail.domain.com or mail.novara.ie

If you want to point your mail to an IP address, you have to create an A record for it then point the MX record to that A record.

So you would create mail.domain.com pointing at the IP address then point your MX record at mail.domain.com.


You can have more than one MX record in case one goes down. MX records are given a priority from one to 50 and the lowest number is the server that gets preference. If that isn't working the next one is used.

For example 

 domain.com (10) mail.domain.com
 domain.com (20) mail2.domain.com

If mail.domain.com is not responding it gets picked up by mail2.domain.com

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CNAME record (a canonical name)

This defines an alias for an A record. Generally a CNAME record points a hostname in a domain to another hostname in another domain.

For instance, we put CNAME records in place for our customers' webmail a lot, we would point mail.domain.com at mail.novara.ie (where the webmail is hosted) and so you can access webmail from mail.domain.com, making it easier to remember.

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