Migrating your DNS to another provider can be stressful and confusing. This guide will walk you through what you need to do to get it done.
Before we start you’re going to need two things.
- You’ll need a zone file or a .csv with all of your DNS records. Your provider may have an option in their UI that creates this for you, or you can ask them for it directly.
- Pro Dynamic DNS or one of our other services that more closely fit your needs. If you’re unsure which service you need you can find information on each service here. If you already purchased a service and need a different one, you’ll need to contact support.
Creating Your Zone
If you’re using your own custom domain name you’ll need to create a Zone for your domain. You can create one from within your account from the Managed DNS page. Click on “Create Zone”, type in your domain name, then click “Create Zone” again.
Creating Your Records
Your first step is recreating your records with us. If you don’t have a lot of records it may be easier and faster to simply create them manually yourself.
Manually Creating Records
Login to your No-IP account and navigate to our DNS Records page.
- Click “Add A Hostname”
- Type in your hostname in the first field. If your entire record was “example.yourdomain.com” the hostname would be “example”.
- Select your custom domain from the top of the dropdown next to the hostname field.
- Select your Hostname Type
- Enter an IP Address/Target
- Click “Add Hostname”
Automatically Creating Records
If you have a large list of records, creating them one by one may be out of the question. To address this, we can create those records for you automatically.
You’ll need to send the zone or .csv file we mentioned to our support team and we’ll create the entire list of records on your behalf. Send an email to support@noip.com letting us know that you would like to process a zone import, your email address, and the file with your records as an attachment. You should get a response before the end of our workday. Make sure you have the correct service for the amount of hostnames you want to import. There’s no need to create any records manually if you’re going to import your zone automatically.
Pointing your Domain to No-IP
The last step is to point you custom domain from your current DNS provider to No-IP. You must change your domain’s nameservers to match our nameservers. You’ll find these settings at your domain registrar.
ns1.no-ip.com
ns2.no-ip.com
ns3.no-ip.com
ns4.no-ip.com
When you make this change your domain and all of it’s associated records will be inaccessible for some time. You’ll see service return within a few hours, and everything should be fully functions and accessible globally within 24-48 hours.
Updating your DDNS Devices
Unfortunately, there isn’t an easy way to do this. You’ll need to update the DDNS settings on each device associated to a hostname. Here’s what you’ll typically need to enter into your device:
DDNS Provider: No-IP
Username: Your DDNS Key Username / Email
Password: Your DDNS Key Password
Hostname/Domain: all.ddnskey.com
Server/Server Address: dynupdate.no-ip.com
Not every device will ask you for a server or server address. The service will still work without issue, if the device does not ask for it.
DDNS Key usernames and passwords are created individually for each hostname or group of hostnames. They are generated from the DNS Records page in your account.