.NET Nameservers require additional configuration of some kind?

Question

I must say I think Namecheap have told me something possibly not true as I have never come across this issue before. I admit it's been a few years since I've changed nameservers for a .net domain but alas something is definitely wrong somewhere.

The Problem

I have been trying to change the nameservers of a .net domain through Namecheap for almost a week now. Every time I make the change, between 8-16 hours later namecheap will revert my custom setting back to their basic free name servers and my domain will remain pointing to their parking page. This has happened 3 times now.

I am trying to configure the Nameservers too:

sdns2.ovh.net & vps284508.ovh.net

My Plesk DNS configuration for the domain question reads as follows:

Two other domains (.com/.co.uk) for the last 6 months have used the same nameservers through Namecheap without issue.

Speaking to Namecheap

After forcing the nameserver changes through their end, a LiveChat representative came back with the following:

Thank you for waiting. Indeed, the domain name xxx.co.uk is pointed to these nameservers. However, .co.uk and .net have different Registries. Once you point .co.uk domain name to vps284508.ovh.net nameservers, it cannot check whether there is Glue Record, as it .net Registry. Thus, you have managed to change the nameservers for xxx.co.uk. However, when you try to change the nameservers for .net domain name, it can check that the nameserver is not registered yet, that is why the nameservers are reverted after they were changed.

A glue record is the IP address of a nameserver held at the domain Registry. Glue records are required when you wish to set nameservers of a domain name to a hostname under the domain name itself. For example, to set the nameservers of example.com to "ns1.example.com" and "ns2.example.com", you would need to provide the glue records (i.e., the IP addresses) for "ns1.example.com" and "ns2.example.com", i.e., register nameservers with the example.com registrar.

Speaking to OVH (My host provider)

They have confirmed that in terms of server settings and plesk configuration everything appears to be without issue.

Very unusual as the .net registry do not do any checks, you/they should be able to change them without any errors at all.

.net is within Plesk then the DNS is correctly setup.

I am now at a loss, once again the changes are not going through, can anyone enlighten me? Thanks in adance.

Answer 1

If your xxx.co.uk domain uses (or wish to use) sdns2.ovh.net and vps284508.ovh.net as nameservers, then there is no question of glue whatsoever since these nameservers are obviously not in-bailiwick of xxx.co.uk (not under the same "base" name).

In all registries handling nameservers as objects, these nameservers must be registered at the registry before being able to use them. This registration is either done by any registrar (in the given registry) for external nameservers, or by the registrar handling the "base" domain name if the domain name is already inside the registry.

You can see on http://registrars.nominet.uk/namespace/uk/registration-and-domain-management/epp-commands#create that Nominet for .CO.UK works this way, registrars need to create nameservers at registry.

So, in short, NameCheap needs to register both of your nameservers at the .CO.UK registry, after what they could associate it with your domain name. There may be a tool on the panel they give you access to for you to do this operation yourself. It seems to be there: https://www.namecheap.com/support/knowledgebase/article.aspx/768/10/how-do-i-register-personal-nameservers-for-my-domain (but you should not provide an IP address of course)

Answer 2

I don't think they are telling you anything that is untrue. It may be more "technical" than what I might say in a similar situation, but it all sounds fine. What they are telling you applies to all gTLDs, not just net.

In a nutshell, what I'd say is that those Name Servers you are trying to apply are not registered, and that is a requirement before you can apply them to a domain name. Though in our case, our system would just throw back an error message telling you that, rather than reverting back to old Name Servers.

You can confirm the Name Server isn't properly registered here:

https://reports.internic.net/cgi/whois?whois_nic=vps284508.ovh.net&type=nameserver

compare that to your other one, which IS registered. This is how both should look:

https://reports.internic.net/cgi/whois?whois_nic=sdns2.ovh.net&type=nameserver

You should just contact OVH and have the first one registered.