:Frequently asked questions

Question

Category

Description

FAQ about purchases, renewals, upgrades, downgrades, refunds, and expires

Purchase

• What is the difference between the free and paid editions?

• How to reduce the fees of the DNS traffic analysis feature of Public Authoritative DNS?

Renewal

How do I enable auto-renewal for my paid instances of Alibaba Cloud DNS?

Upgrade

• Is DNS resolution affected if I upgrade a free instance of Alibaba Cloud DNS to a paid instance of Alibaba Cloud DNS?

• Why am I asked to change DNS server names after I upgrade a paid instance of Alibaba Cloud DNS?

Degrade

• How can I downgrade the edition of may paid Alibaba Cloud DNS?

• Why do I fail to downgrade from a paid edition to the free edition?

• If my paid instance of Alibaba Cloud DNS is about to expire but I do not want to renew it, can I downgrade the instance to the free edition of Alibaba Cloud DNS?

Refund

Can I request a refund for Alibaba Cloud DNS instances?

Expire

• Is DNS resolution affected if a paid instance of Alibaba Cloud DNS expires?

FAQ about configuring a domain name/subdomain

Domain name

• What do I do if I cannot add a domain name?

• Why am I unable to delete a primary domain?

• Why does my paid instance of Alibaba Cloud DNS fail to be bound to domain names?

• When I attempt to bind my paid instance of Alibaba Cloud DNS to a domain name, why am I prompted that the domain name does not exist?

• What do I do if both the primary domain and subdomains are hosted by Alibaba Cloud DNS and I want to change the DNS service provider of the primary domain to a third-party DNS service provider without affecting the DNS resolution of the subdomains?

• Is the DNS resolution of subdomains affected if the subdomains are hosted by Alibaba Cloud DNS and I change the DNS service provider of the primary domain from a third-party DNS service provider to Alibaba Cloud DNS?

Subdomain

• How do I configure a subdomain/second-level domain?

• Can I delegate a subdomain to Alibaba Cloud DNS for DNS resolution?

• Can I use Alibaba Cloud DNS to host subdomains if the primary domain is hosted by a third-party DNS service provider?

• Why are the names of DNS servers assigned by Alibaba Cloud DNS not displayed on the DNS Settings page after I add a subdomain?

• Why is the number of DNS records of a subdomain displayed as 0 on the DNS Settings page after I add the subdomain for a primary domain hosted by Alibaba Cloud DNS?

• Why is the DNS server status of a subdomain displayed as "Running exception" on the DNS Settings page after I add the subdomain for a primary domain hosted by Alibaba Cloud DNS?

FAQ about domain name resolution/DNS records

FAQs

• What do I need to prepare before I configure a DNS record?

• What types of DNS records does Alibaba Cloud DNS support?

• Does Alibaba Cloud DNS allow a domain name to be mapped to a port?

• What is IPv6? Does Alibaba Cloud DNS support IPv6?

• Can after-sales support engineers configure DNS settings for me?

• Does Alibaba Cloud DNS provide website building services?

• How do I point a domain name to the IP address of a website server?

• How do I configure DNS settings for a domain name that is registered with a third-party DNS service provider?

• How to map a domain name to another domain name of a website?

• How can I configure DNS settings with a mailbox not registered with Alibaba Cloud?

• What do a hostname and a record value mean?

• Does Alibaba Cloud DNS support weighted round-robin?

• Does Alibaba Cloud DNS support anycast?

• Does Alibaba Cloud DNS support dynamic DNS (DDNS)?

• What is the default TTL period of DNS records? Can I change the TTL period?

• Are there any limits on the quantities of hosted domain names and DNS records?

• Does Alibaba Cloud DNS support wildcard DNS records? If yes, for what types of DNS records does Alibaba Cloud DNS support wildcard DNS records?

A/AAAA records

• Can I map a subdomain to multiple IP addresses?

• Can I use A records to point a domain name to a specific port of the server?

• Can two or more domain names be resolved to the IP address of one ECS instance?

• Are there any limitations on the type of IP address that can be set as a DNS record value?

• Can I enter an IP address outside the Chinese mainland as the record value when adding a DNS record?

• How does Alibaba Cloud DNS resolve a subdomain if I configure both an IPv6 address and an IPv4 address for the subdomain?

• Can DNS load balancing be implemented by resolving a domain name to the IP addresses of multiple servers?

CNAME records

• What is the difference between CNAME records and URL forwarding records?

• Why does the system display a message indicating a conflict between an A record and a CNAME record when I add a record?

• Why does the system display a message indicating a conflict between a mail exchanger (MX) record and a CNAME record when I add a record?

• Can I resolve the CNAME records to a specific path?

• Should I add a dot (.) at the end of a domain name when adding a DNS record?

• I cannot configure CNAME records to navigate to Baidu homepage from Alibaba Cloud. Why?

• Can I configure multiple CNAME records that have the same hostname and resolution line?

• How does Alibaba Cloud DNS respond to DNS requests if multiple CNAME records that have the same hostname and resolution line are configured?

URL records

• What can I do to troubleshoot URL forwarding issues?

• How many URL forwarding records can be set?

• Do domain names involved in URL forwarding support HTTPS?

• Can I specify a URL that includes path parameters when I configure URL forwarding?

• Why does the system display a message indicating a URL filing exception when I add a URL forwarding record?

PTR records

• What is reverse DNS lookup?

• Is reverse DNS lookup (PTR) free of charge? How do I configure it?

TXT records

Why is there a text (TXT) record in my DNS records?

MX records

• What is the purpose of setting priorities for MX records?

• Can I add MX records for enterprise mailbox?

• Why does the system display a message indicating a conflict between a mail exchanger (MX) record and a CNAME record when I add a record?

NS records

What do I do if an NS record that I want to add for a primary domain conflicts with a subdomain?

FAQ about DNS resolution issues/website unavailability

FAQs

• How do I check whether the DNS settings take effect?

• Why does domain name resolution not take effect?

• What can I do if the DNS settings do not take effect within a long period of time?

• Why are the updates to the DNS settings unable to take effect on a local DNS server?

• Why are the updates to the DNS settings unable to take effect in some regions?

• Can Alibaba Cloud DNS engineers contact Internet service providers (ISPs) to refresh the caches of local DNS servers?

Website is inaccessible when DNS settings have taken effect

• Why is my website inaccessible, although the DNS settings have taken effect?

• Why does a ping operation fail, although the DNS settings have taken effect?

• Why is my website intermittently unavailable?

FAQ about the time when DNS settings take effect

Modify DNS record

• When does a DNS record take effect after I add it?

• When do the updates take effect after I delete or modify a DNS record?

• Why does a DNS record take effect immediately after it is added?

• Why are the updates unable to take effect immediately after I modify, delete, or disable a DNS record?

• Why do the updates take effect faster in some regions than in other regions after I modify or delete a DNS record?

Modify DNS

When do the updates take effect after I modify the DNS server information? Why do the updates take 48 hours to take effect after I modify the DNS server information?

FAQ about DNS protection

FAQs

• What does DNS protection mean in the paid editions of Alibaba Cloud DNS?

• Does the free edition of Alibaba Cloud DNS support DNS protection?

• Does Alibaba Cloud DNS support DNSSEC?

• Can DNS protection be used to defend against DDoS attacks?

• What are the scope and capability of DNS protection?

• Is DNS protection available within the validity period for a paid instance of Alibaba Cloud DNS?

• Where can I view DNS protection data if I have purchased DNS protection?

• What should I do if the number of DNS queries in an attack exceeds the upper limit supported by DNS Attack Defense Advanced?

FAQ about intelligent DNS resolution

FAQs

• Solutions to inaccurate intelligent DNS resolution

• How is the intelligent DNS resolution feature billed?

• What is the intelligent DNS resolution feature of Alibaba Cloud DNS?

• How does intelligent DNS resolution determine the geographical location of a visitor?

• Why am I unable to set regional lines in the Chinese mainland?

• How do I switch user request traffic to a functioning server by using intelligent DNS resolution when a server fails?

• Does intelligent DNS resolution support nearby access if I have two servers hosted by China Mobile and China Unicom?

• Can I point a domain name to multiple server IP addresses by using intelligent DNS resolution, and select overlapping geographic locations for resolution lines? If yes, how does Alibaba Cloud DNS respond to DNS requests?

FAQ about domain names

FAQs about domain name account

• Will DNS records added for a domain name be deleted if I transfer the domain name from one account to another account in the Domains console?

• Can I directly transfer a domain name that is registered with a third-party domain name registrar across Alibaba Cloud accounts in the Domains console?

FAQs about domain name transfer

• Will transferring a domain name to or from Alibaba Cloud affect DNS resolution?

• Will transferring both the domain name and DNS server to or from Alibaba Cloud affect DNS resolution?

FAQs about expiration/renewal

• Is DNS resolution affected if the domain name to which an Alibaba Cloud DNS instance is bound expires?

• How long does it take to resume DNS resolution after I renew an expired domain name?

• Can Alibaba Cloud DNS engineers help resume DNS resolution after an expired domain name is renewed?

• Why does the domain name detection tool still show the domain name as expired after renewal?

FAQ about DNS servers

Modify DNS servers

• How can I change DNS servers for a domain name?

• How can I specify a DNS server for a subdomain name?

• Can I use DNS servers provided by different service providers at the same time?

• What is the difference between changing DNS servers for a domain name and configuring domain name resolution?

• Does the change of DNS servers for a domain name affect the resolution of the domain name?

• How long does it take for the change of DNS servers for a domain name to globally take effect?

• When I attempt to change DNS server names, why am I asked to try again later because an operation is in progress?

• Is DNS resolution affected if I change the DNS server names of a paid instance that I have purchased?

The migration of domain names and DNS records

Domain name: Cross-service providers

Transfer a domain name to Alibaba Cloud without affecting DNS resolution

Domain name: Across Alibaba Cloud accounts

Transfer a domain name across Alibaba Cloud accounts without interrupting business

DNS record: Cross-service providers

Smooth domain name imgration to Alibaba Cloud DNS

DNS record: Across Alibaba Cloud accounts

Transfer DNS records across Alibaba Cloud accounts