Secondary DNS

Secondary DNS

Redundancy for a primary you run.

Keep your existing primary DNS server — BIND, PowerDNS, Windows DNS, or anything that speaks standard zone transfers — and let ZoneEdit serve your zones as a secondary across our anycast network.

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How it works

Your server stays the source of truth. ZoneEdit pulls each zone from your primary with a standard transfer (AXFR) and answers queries for it worldwide. When you change a zone, your primary sends a NOTIFY and we re-transfer right away — otherwise we refresh on the timers in your SOA record.

Three steps to set it up

1. Allow transfers

On your primary, permit zone transfers to 64.68.198.91 and add the same address to your notify list.

2. Add the zone

Add the domain in your ZoneEdit account as a secondary zone, pointing at your primary server’s IP.

3. Publish

Add the ZoneEdit nameservers for the zone at your registrar so resolvers can use them.

Example: BIND

On the primary side, allow transfers to and notify 64.68.198.91:

zone "example.com" {
        type master;
        file "example.com.zone";
        allow-transfer { 64.68.198.91/32; };
        also-notify { 64.68.198.91; };
};

Not running BIND? Any authoritative server works the same way: allow AXFR from 64.68.198.91 and send NOTIFYs to it.

Firewall note

Transfer requests originate from 64.68.198.91 — make sure TCP port 53 from that address can reach your primary.

Add resilient secondaries

Your primary, our anycast edge.

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