.DE Domains in Custom DNS

Domains within the .DE TLD are troublesome. Mostly this is due to odd restrictions put on the domains by DENIC (the central registry for .DE domains). The primary problem is that DENIC requires domains to be pre-activated and also requires that the delegation for the domain list ALL nameservers which claim authority for the domain.

Because our Custom DNS system uses a total of 5 nameservers, this requires that the delegation for the .DE domain also list 5 nameservers and in many cases registrars only provide a delegation change form that lists up to 4 nameservers.

A secondary problem is that DENIC runs a suite of automated tests to determine if the name service being provided is "acceptable" to them. This suite of tests can fail for one or more reasons including transient network problems. If the tests fail the delegation change needs to be re-submitted. This may even occur multiple times.

The same applies for new domain registrations with the added pain that the registration itself fails unless some human intervention is applied.

To deal with this situation and make it possible for customers to use Custom DNS with .DE domains we are working with a third party registrar (domaindiscount24.net) to ensure that their registration and delegation update systems can fully support delegating .DE domains to our servers.

New Domains

  1. Verify that the domain you want to register is available.
  2. Create a Custom DNS zone for the domain in our system.
  3. Wait 1 hour to be sure the domain has been pre-activated in our system.
  4. Test the pre-activation by running one of these commands from a shell/prompt/terminal: 
    dig your-domain.de @ns1.mydyndns.org soa
    nslookup -q=soa your-domain.de ns1.mydyndns.org

    OR use the NameServer Check-Tool provided by domaindiscount24.net

    Nameserver test inspection (.AT/.DE)
    Domain name: ("example.de")
  5. Once the above test indicates that our nameservers are responding for the domain, submit the new domain registration via domaindiscount24.com being sure to list all 5 of our nameservers.

Existing Domains

  1. Create a Custom DNS zone for the domain in our system.
  2. Wait 1 hour to be sure the domain has been pre-activated in our system.
  3. Test the pre-activation by running one of these commands from a shell/prompt/terminal: 
    dig your-domain.de @ns1.mydyndns.org soa
    nslookup -q=soa your-domain.de ns1.mydyndns.org

    OR use the NameServer Check-Tool provided by domaindiscount24.net

    Nameserver test inspection (.AT/.DE)
    Domain name: ("example.de")
  4. Transfer the domain registration to Domain Discount 24.
  5. Once the transfer is complete, login to your domaindiscount24.net account and change the nameservers listed for your domain to ours: