How to use a free DNS service

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What is a Free DNS service?

This service is intended for users who do not know how manage their own DNS server, users who do not want to host their own DNS server or just find it more easily to use an already managed service. Even advance users who already know how manage their DNS server consider using a free dns in cases where its not important to have their own DNS server.

Also a DNS server like bind or simpleDNS will use too much ram or are depended of other services like mysql. In any case it’s not a simple job to get it started if you’re a beginner, hence somebody out there already though about providing a free DNS service to users around the glob.

In the past I used some Free DNS services however after a few years, I found them ending their service. This is the major draw-back, a free service can be take down any time and possible without any notice. However I found that the free dns service from afraid.freedns.org is still working and the service is really reliable!

In this article, I want to talk about this service, what can you do with it and how do you manage their service, well just in simple examples, the rest is easy to get around once you know a little.

How to signup to their service?

Signing up is easy, just need a few information needed, standard signup form:

https://freedns.afraid.org/signup/

Then you can login by clicking the left side menu “Domains” and enter your registered user and password.

Adding a domain name to the FreeDNS Service

This again is simple, after you login you click on “Add A Domain into FreeDNS”  and enter your domain name and its “share state”. More details are explain on that page, so read it carefully.

What is important, to use their Free DNS service, you need to change the nameservers on your domain name to:

NS1.AFRAID.ORG
NS2.AFRAID.ORG
NS3.AFRAID.ORG
NS4.AFRAID.ORG

Domain will be marked as “broken” until the system checks your domain and “sees” that you are using their nameservers.

You will need to allow up to 24-48 hours for domain propagation or follow this tutorial to clear your computer cache:

http://www.yourhowto.com/cleardns/

Managing your domain DNS records through Afraid FreeDNS service

After you add the domain name to your account, click on the left side menu “Domains” and on the right side you should see there your domain name and right next to it the link “manage“. Click on the manage link to manage your DNS record.

Now by default, the service will create you basic DNS records for:

  • yourdomain.com A record
  • www.yourdomain.com A record
  • ftp.yourdomain.com A record
  • mail.yourdomain.com A record
  • irc.yourdomain.com A record
  • domain.com MX record
  • A records  are records that uses IP addresses
  • MX records are user for poiting the mail server of the specific domain name
  • CNAME records are canonical records, this can be used to mask a specific record. For example, www.yourdomain.com can be used as a canonical name for yourdomain.com

The above 3 records the most used. There are also the SPF and TXT records which are important for mail authentification, but that’s probably a topic for another article.

So let’s get back, to create a new DNS record you just click the “add” link next to your domain name (Not the one next to the “Delete selected” button!).

On the next form, select the record type and add a subdomain name to your domain name.To manage a record for your main domain, leave the subdomain option blank! In the 3rd case it should be your domain name already selected. Enter the destination or record value in the 4th case and click the “save” button.

And that is all, the records are created automatically and instantly, however domain propagation can still be in effect.

You also have other options depending on the type of DNS record, for example, for MX records you also have the priority option which you need to add. You can also change the TTL options but this is only for premium members.

Simple, right ? It wasn’t that hard :), if you have problems, feel free to comment and I’ll try to help where possible.

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