Step One : Login as a system-wide administrator. The primary account established as part of the initial install is a system-wide administrator.
Step Two : Using the top menu bar navigate to “Configuration” and setup the following global parameters under “Site”:
- Site Name : The label that appears in the header.
- Site URL : The URL label that appears in the header
- Site IP’s : The IP address of the Registry. If this is not correct, users that aren't allowed to connect via EPP will not have full functionality.
- Record ID : This is the suffix appended to all id's generated for the repository, it must be short.
- Zone File Directory :The server directory where automatically generated zone files will be stored. They are time date stamped / zipped.
- Registry Nameservers : The hostnames of the PowerDNS servers connected to the Registry – optional and can be used for A/ MX etc.
- Suspended Name Servers : Name servers to use if a domains status is set to “Suspended”.
- Shadow Name Servers : Name servers to delegate lists of domains to ignoring the delegation information. Various uses.
- EPP Server : IP address and port EPP server is set to Bind too, can be a public IP or local host. If you do not intend to allow EPP access just set the EPP server to local host. This needs to be done in the epp.conf.xml file and then set in match in the GUI.
- Whois Server : IP and port the Whois server will be set too – should be a public IP. This is set only here, no need to configure elsewhere.
Step Three : Setup Whois White-Lists, Black Lists and Network Thresholds.
Step Four : Setup “Profanity” registration black list. Can be profane words, names of cities or any other text stings that the admin wants to block. This function uses boolean logic so it is quite flexible.
Step Five : Payment Accounts, the merchant account login info supplied by your bank or payment gateway. The contact information associated with the payment account is used for the header / footer information in the system generated PDF transaction receipts.
Step Six : Setup email sever and define the header and footer information to be sent out with all system generated email.
Once you have added a TLD under the Configuration Menu, or as part of the initial install, add any stub-zones (com.tld / gov.tld) which are configured under the Zones Menu.
If you want to add a stub zone simply go to the Zones Menu and select Create Zone. **Note, after you create a stub-zone you need to actually register that zone and provide the correct delegation and whois information.
Zone Configuration: Part One - Edit Zone Details
Published = The Zone is included in the scheduled zone generation.
ENUM Zone = Allow multiple levels / numbers.
IDN Zone = Allow domains that start with “xn—“ (puny code), if you select “Yes” a box will pop-up and you will need to add the allowed Endpoints. Adding Endpoints enables the zone to allow IDN registrations. You need to create a white-list of which IDN symbols are allowed for each zone. See IANA website for Endpoints.
Registration Status = This is the default status for domains registered in a zone. If set to the default “Active” all new domains are automatically included in the automated zone build. If this is set to “Suspended or Excluded” the domain can be registered but is not included in the zone until there is manual intervention by an admin and the status is changed to active. If your policy is to manually review some or all domains you can allow the registrations but not publish in that specific zone ( gov.tld etc ) until approved.
Serial Type = Zone serial numbers type.
Zone Configuration: Part Two - Automation
Here you can set Auto Suspend and Auto Delete, and if applicable, the notices to be sent - and to whom for each zone. You may want to set auto suspend / delete for .tld or com.tld but not for gov.tld. The default is no auto suspension or deletion; suspension and deletions are done in batches by an administrator using the Bulk Status or Bulk Delete options.
Zone Configuration: Part Three – Whois Overrides
The Espresso system Whois Server publishes Registrar, Date Registered, Date of Expiry and Name Servers as the defaults. Display of all other information is registrant or registrar configurable per contact and domain. A registrant can choose which detailed Whois disclosures they want.
Using the Whois Override feature you can ignore the disclosure settings and force the Whois server to display or hide various details for ALL domains in that Zone. This allows for almost unlimited flexibility; for example you could force display of all for gov.tld zones but leave limited user-configurable display for a personal zone per TLD.
Zone Generation
Zones are generated manually or on a schedule set in the Maintenance menu. The zone generation script will generate zones and then save them as time-date stamped zip files and as raw text files.
You should create a specific client (or several) for zone generation, the software will add the clientID as a suffix to the zone files. Zone files will be generated for zones that a specific client has administrative rights to.
For example you can create a client “com_zone” that is a Zone Administrator for the com.tld zone and then set for hourly zone generation, you can create a second client “gov_zone” that generates the gov zone once a day.
Normally this is a bit of a hassle, but the flexibility exists.
If you just want to look at a zone you can generate a zone at any time from the zones menu and save as a zip to your desktop.
Once you have generated a zone you need to run a cron job that executes a pearl script to load the new zones and restart BIND.
It is recommended to run BIND as the hidden master / primary on the registry box for the purpose of transferring the zones to the published TLD name servers / Anycast hubs.
Status Implications
You can easily set the status for any domain or group of domains to “Suspended” or “Excluded”.
If the status of a domain is Excluded, delegation information is ignored by the zone generation program. It is in the database but not published in the zone.
If the status of a domain is Suspended the zone generation program will ignore the delegation information in the registry and replace it with the Suspended Servers you have specified in the global Configuration.
This way you can easily park suspended names to a web page that says “This name has been suspended for XYZ reasons.”
