Applying to use the JANET Primary Nameserver Service

Eligibility

The service is intended to provide a basic primary nameserver service to support e-mail and web use by smaller or less experienced JANET customer organisations. Organisations capable of providing their own primary nameserver should do so rather than relying on the JANET Primary Nameserver Service. For JANET customer organisations that have been allocated a DNS domain by the relevant domain registrar, the service can provide primary nameservers that will respond to queries for a small number of resource records in their domain. Organisations with sponsored JANET connections are not eligible to use this service.

Applying

To apply for the service, an e-mail should be sent on behalf of an organisation by a recognised JANET contact to JANET Customer Service (JCS) at: service@ja.net with the subject ‘JANET Primary Nameserver Service application for (name of organisation)’, using the application form template.

• Acknowledgment of applications

  JANET(UK) will acknowledge receipt of your application within four working hours. If you have heard nothing after that time please contact JANET Service Desk.
  

• Processing of applications

  JANET(UK) will seek to set up the service within eight working days of receiving your application. However, this is dependent on the detailed technical co-operation of other parties including yourselves.
  

• Configuration and Information changes

  JANET(UK) will seek to make any changes you request to the configuration of your service within two working days, with the same reservations as those for the processing of applications to use the service.

Customers are reminded that this service is intended only for simple DNS information and that limits may therefore be placed on the number of requests for changes that a single customer may request in a given period. Urgent changes will, of course, be allowed if they are justified.

Due to the distributed nature of the DNS, frequent changes may in any case affect the stability and availability of the domain’s services and networks. This is because although the information in the primary and secondary nameservers will be updated daily, resource records are also held in caches on nameservers all over the Internet and these will not be updated until the resource record’s TTL has passed. Changes to DNS information may therefore take hours or days to reach all parts of the Internet.

Contacts

JANET(UK) or its contractors may need to contact an organisation for various purposes such as:

• requests for urgent action in an emergency, in respect of some user activity
  
• routine announcements about the operation or use of the service
  
• notices about abnormal operation
  
• policy questions about the continued use of the service or escalation of unresolved requests.

As part of the registration process an organisation will be asked to provide an e-mail contact address for these purposes. This contact address may be, for example, an individual responsible for network and associated services, a functional address for the DNS service (provided this is read regularly by an appropriate person) or a helpdesk. It is a condition of the use of the service that requests sent to the contact addresses provided are responded to in a timely manner. Contact e-mail addresses will be included in a mailing list that the service managers may use for announcements. This mailing list will not be available to anyone except the managers.

In addition to the e-mail contact address, the name and telephone number of a person who can be contacted in emergencies must be provided.

The service operator will e-mail the contact address from time to time to confirm that the details held by JANET(UK) are still accurate.

It is an Internet standard, set out in RFC1034/1035, that every zone should have a ‘hostmaster’ e-mail address to which questions about the zone may be sent. For domains that are hosted by this service, JANET(UK) will publish a suitable e-mail address as part of the Start-Of-Authority (SOA) resource record for each zone. Mail to that address will be delivered to our service operators, who may pass it on to an organisation contact if they cannot answer it themselves. The hostmaster address is intended to receive messages about DNS information, but it is often used improperly to report other problems that appear to originate from the domain, for example e-mail abuse, viruses or hacking attempts. The organisational contact should be prepared to receive such messages and pass them on to the correct people within the organisation.

Conditions of use

Use of the JANET Primary Nameserver service is subject to the JANET Acceptable Use Policy and the JANET Security Policy.

Applicants for the JANET Primary Nameserver Service must indemnify JANET(UK), their agents and subcontractors against any and all liability for claims involving the zones for which the JANET Primary Nameserver Service is providing a name service. By using this service, applicants are indicating to the JANET Primary Nameserver Service that they:

• own the zones that they are registering
  
• are using resources that they have the right to use in this manner (for example, IP address space)
  
• are not using resources that they do not have the right to use
  
• will not violate and are not violating any applicable laws
  
• accept that if such violations occur, these violations are the sole responsibility of the applicant and not JANET(UK), their agents and subcontractors.

Registering a Domain Name

To register your domain name under ac.uk or gov.uk, if this has not already been done, or to change delegation details.

JANET(UK) is responsible for the administration and registration of domain names under the ac.uk and gov.uk domains. We can provide neutral advice to JANET customers on registering and maintaining names in other domains if requested. Nominet should be contacted for information on all other domains under .uk, including sch.uk. JANET(UK) may assist a customer organisation to register a new domain name other than under ac.uk/gov.uk if required, but this will be a chargeable service. The details can be found at: JANET(UK) will not undertake to register domain names administered outside the UK.

Delegation to Nameservers

Delegation associates nameservers with your domain. In this case, the JANET nameservers are the ones to which your domain will be delegated.