easyDNS Blog - What's New

easyDNS soft launches DNSresolvers.com

nospam@example.com (Mark Jeftovic) — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 20:59:48 -0400

With the ramifications of the DNS cache poisoning bug beginning to sink in and the first exploit code being published today, we are anticipating an accelerating number of queries from our members about this and what they can do to ensure their own DNS caching resolvers are safe to use.

We can tell you about two public DNS resolver systems you can use. One external, one we just launched ourselves:

OpenDNS: User friendly DNS lookups - with anti-phishing protection

We've never been in the DNS resolution or DNS resolving business. There are companies like OpenDNS who are. We know the people who run this company, they are competent and knowledgeable and we consider their service safe. That said, they also provide protection against phishing domains and they do trap NXDOMAIN traffic. Yes, they do monetize failed lookups via a search suggestion page with PPC links, individual users do have the ability to turn this off.

easyDNS launches DNSResolvers.com: no frills, pure DNS lookups - fully patched

Some of our members have expressed reservations around using any DNS resolver that "alters" the traffic in any way, including typos and non-existent domains. Which is good news for us, because we've done this so fast we haven't had time to build anything like that even if we wanted to. What we did want to do is provide a couple of DNS resolvers for use by our members (or anybody else) who just want to know they're using a system run by people who are actively following this situation and are proactively keeping their own resolvers and caching nameservers as secure as the protocol allows.

With this in mind we've turned up DNSresolvers.com today. No website, no user interface, at the moment it's just a couple of resolvers with the latest security patches in place and that will continue to do so, open to use by anybody who wants. We have no idea where this will go, and it's not really an official easyDNS "service" per se. But we wanted to do something to give our members options.

If you want to use DNSresolvers.com, the details are as follows:



cache1.dnsresolvers.com -> 205.210.42.205

cache2.dnsresolvers.com -> 64.68.200.200



easySPF: An SPF Wizard
nospam@example.com (Mark Jeftovic) — Tue, 21 Aug 2007 20:06:14 -0400
We've had customers asking us for a simple SPF wizard to help generate Sender Policy Framework (SPF) data. There are a few out there, but we have set up one at wizard.easySPF.com or spfwizard.com.



As we iron out any usability bugs we will roll out some integration hooks to make it easier to pull the output from the wizard into your zonedata, but for now it's the old cut-and-paste.



.CA registration only service rolled out at $19
nospam@example.com (Mark Jeftovic) — Fri, 18 May 2007 11:56:33 -0400
Happy Victoria Day weekend, eh? We're marking the holiday by filling a gap in our service offering. When .CA rolled out, we wanted to capitalize on our position as a premiere DNS provider by bundling our world class DNS hosting with our newfound status as a Registrar (this was very new to us at the time).



Things are very different today and many of our customers have expressed the wish to have the option to register .CA's without DNS and have a price point that reflects that.



So today we introduce the .CA domain registration at $19 CDN. As with our other gTLD registration and parking packages, this one comes with basic email aliasing/forwarding, so even if you just want to reserve a .CA domain name, you can start using it for receiving email right away.



Happy May Two-Four!


We are now tracking the Spamhaus PBL
nospam@example.com (easyDNS Support) — Wed, 24 Jan 2007 13:29:58 -0500
We are now tracking the Spamhaus The Policy Block list.  This list allows service providers to define blocks of IP addresses where e-mail should not originate from.



    This service should reduce spam and load on our mail systems. 



From the summary at Spamhaus: 



The Spamhaus PBL is a DNSBL database of end-user IP address ranges which should not be delivering unauthenticated SMTP email to any Internet mail server except those provided for specifically by an ISP for that customer's use. The PBL helps networks enforce their Acceptable Use Policy for dynamic and non-MTA customer IP ranges.




Users who have been added to the PBL (most probably by the originating ISP that you receive Internet service from) have recourse; you can go to the page below which will explain how to get unblocked.



More information can be found at this location; http://www.spamhaus.org/pbl/




Greylisting for email forwarded to Hotmail and MSN
nospam@example.com (easyDNS Support) — Wed, 13 Dec 2006 08:23:22 -0500
Over the last few months, there has been a steady increase in spam and virus emails. Due to the nature of our mail forwarding service, this sometimes leads to ISPs and free email services being forwarded a large number of "junk" email. In the past, easyDNS has always strived to limit the amount of filtering that has been imposed upon the mail forwarding service that we provide. Unfortunately, in the case of Hotmail and MSN, we have been reluctantly forced to subject all forwarded email destined for Hotmail and MSN email addresses to "greylisting". More information about greylisting can be found here, at the following URL:



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greylisting



In short, greylisting is a method where a piece of email being relayed to one of our mailservers is initially deferred. This means that it is not accepted upon the first attempt, rather, the sending mailserver is told to relay it again at a later time. With standard mailserver configurations, such as those generally maintained by your ISP and free email service provider, the email will be re-sent at a later time, usually anywhere from 5-20 minutes. For spammers and machines sending virus emails, they generally don't operate like standard mailservers, and usually won't relay their email again at a later time. Right there, at least 50% of spam and virus emails have been effectively stopped.



Unfortunately, with greylisting enabled for all email destined for Hotmail and MSN email addresses, this means that those emails will be subjected to a delay every time they are handled by easyDNS mailservers. This has been put into place to limit the amount of blocking that we have endured by Hotmail and MSN. The idea is that it is better to have email relayed a little late, than not at all.



However, we do understand that there are some who rely on their email being relayed to their Hotmail and MSN addresses as soon as our mailservers receive it, which is why we do have a procedure in place to have your specific Hotmail and MSN email addresses removed from greylisting:



Simply send an email to " support@easydns.com ", with your domain name(s), and the email addresses (along with their destination Hotmail and MSN email addresses) within that domain that you would like to have exempt from greylisting, and we shall update the filter as soon as possible.



If you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to contact us via email, at " support@easydns.com ", or toll-free at 1-888-677-4741.



We apologise for any inconvenience caused by this implementation.


Server monitoring now in beta
nospam@example.com (Mark Jeftovic) — Mon, 23 Oct 2006 12:05:00 -0400
We are pleased to announce that server monitoring is now available for beta users. 



This feature is being rolled out under the DNS-plus service level and will be included as a component of that package. Server monitoring allows members to setup service tests on their hostname (A) records and our system will check those services and send out an alert if the service is found to be down or unresponsive.



For more information on this please see: 



http://support.easydns.com/server_monitoring.php



During the beta period users need to have the "beta flag" set on their accounts. To have this flag set, please contact support.


SPF checking on inbound mail forwarding now out of beta
nospam@example.com (Mark Jeftovic) — Mon, 23 Oct 2006 12:02:29 -0400
We have promoted SPF checking on inbound mail forwarding from beta to normal production. All members can now optionally enable SPF checking on inbound mail destined for their domains via the "email" settings in their domain options.



If the SPF validation equates to hardfail for a domain with SPF validation enabled, our mail servers will reject the inbound message, all other outcomes will be prepended into an additional SPF-Received: header in the message and processed normally. Members can then add additional filters keying on this header in their mail clients or downstream MTAs.



For more details on SPF and how it works, please see easySPF.com





.mobi now available for realtime registrations
nospam@example.com (Mark Jeftovic) — Wed, 11 Oct 2006 11:08:42 -0400
The .mobi top-level-domain goes into realtime live registrations today.



That means you can now register .mobi names like any other TLD. If you own joesgarage.com or joesgarage.ca you can probably grab your .mobi starting today.



One other thing: the .mobi registry is forcing minimum 2-year initial registration periods.


SPF checks now in beta for email forwarding and spooling
nospam@example.com (Mark Jeftovic) — Thu, 29 Jun 2006 12:28:27 -0400
We are now enabling Sender Policy Framework (SPF) checking for  email destined to our members' mail forwarding or backup smtp spooling domains. 



If the SPF validation equates to hardfail for a domain with SPF validation enabled, our mail servers will reject the inbound message, all other outcomes will be prepended into an additional SPF-Received: header in the message and processed normally. Members can then add additional filters keying on this header in their mail clients or downstream MTAs.



This feature is currently in beta , if you wish to be a beta tester for SPF checks, please contact support and ask to have your beta user settings activated. 



For more background on Sender Policy Framework (SPF) and how it can reduce email forgery, see our SPF tutorial and the SPF homepage


easySMTP: Outbound mail service added to DNS-plus
nospam@example.com (Mark Jeftovic) — Mon, 01 May 2006 12:11:47 -0400
We are pleased to announce the addition of our easySMTP™: Outbound mail service to the DNS Plus service level.



This service allows members to send outbound mail through our system and is useful in a number of situations.



As always, if you have any questions or concerns regarding the service, please let support know.



.EU registrations now live
nospam@example.com (Mark Jeftovic) — Tue, 11 Apr 2006 11:06:06 -0400
It took a while to smooth out some issues with the registry but .EU registrations are now live. Pricing is the same as .COM/.NET/.ORG.



Please note, .EU is intended for residents and organizations within the .EU member countries, those countries are:



United Kingdom

Austria

Belgium

Cyprus

Czech Republic

Denmark

Estonia

Finland

France

Germany

Greece

Hungary

Ireland

Italy

Latvia

Lithuania

Luxembourg

Malta (including Gozo and Comino)

Netherlands

Poland

Portugal

Slovakia

Slovenia

Spain

Sweden

Aland Islands

Gibraltar

Martinique

French Guyana

Guadeloupe

Reunion



Nameserver Record editor now-online
nospam@example.com (Mark Jeftovic) — Mon, 03 Apr 2006 13:59:26 -0400
Members now have the ability to edit their zones NS (Nameserver Records) directly. This is handy for three situations:



1. You want to delegate a sub-domain to other external nameservers.



2. You want to bring your NS records in line with your domain's nameserver delegation. Some registries, for example, don't like it when they see remote3.easydns.com or ns6.easydns.net in the domain delegation because by default, there are no NS records for them (we don't like to modify everybody's DNS settings when we add a nameserver, so we use "also-notify" to keep the newer ones in sync). Now users can add the missing NS records, or in other cases, remove NS records that they have not delegated to.



This will also fix the spurious "Missing Nameservers" error reported by DNSreport or DNSStuff

 

3. To add NS records for third-party external nameservers for members who are supplimenting  or mirroring their DNS settings with third party external nameservers (although you don't really need to do this because again, we use "also-notify" to keep your external nameservers in sync with our master) 



The nameserver record editor does not display by default in your DNS settings, you need to enable  "Show Nameserver Records" in your domain setting preferences.



NS6 added to nameserver cluster
nospam@example.com (Mark Jeftovic) — Mon, 13 Feb 2006 09:18:19 -0500
NS6.EASYDNS.NET has been added to the nameserver cluster, this node is comprised of multiple load balanced servers behind a single IP and is running out of Rackspace.com and protected by their Preventier DDoS mitigation service.



This nameserver is an addition to the existing cluster deployed across Prolexic's Clean Pipe and our Q9 locations bringing further redundancy to the nameserver cluster.



New domains and nameserver delegations are including this nameserver when "use easyDNS nameservers" is selected, members are free to add the nameserver to their delegations. We will be running batch jobs down the road to add this nameserver to domain delegations for which we are the registrar of record and which already use our nameservers.



Secondary users: You can find an updated bind ACL here, please wait until ns6 picks up your DNS before adding it to your nameserver delegation.


SSL web certificates now available.
nospam@example.com (Mark Jeftovic) — Wed, 09 Nov 2005 11:27:30 -0500
We are now offering Geotrust SSL certificates with competitive pricing on member domains. While the price is certainly better than other certs or even the Geotrust retail price, we're finding the issues our members seem to value are:



a streamlined provisioning process

simple renewals



The QuickSSL and Quick SSL Premium certificates with member pricing at $99 USD and $139 USD respectively are very popular choices in this regard.



A typical QuickSSL cert can be requested and issued in under 10 minutes. See the SSL documentation pages for more details or to order a cert, look at the Utilities module in your members' section.



We've been using these certs to secure our site for years.


Third-party zone transfers now enabled
nospam@example.com (easyDNS Support) — Wed, 19 Oct 2005 16:24:35 -0400
Starting today members will be able to specify IP addresses of any third-party nameservers they wish to mirror their zones and we will allow zone transfers from those IPs for the specified domains.



You'll see the new field for this at the top of your DNS settings page for each domain, click on the "?" help icon beside it for details on usage.



This will allow users to add additional nameservers to their delegations beyond the easyDNS cluster, either for internal use or added redundancy. 



Also see today's post on our nameserver upgrades for more details on recent measures taken to beef up the nameserver cluster.