10 easyDNS tools and features you always wished for but didn't know you already had.

There are numerous functions, utilities and features built into the system that you may not realize are there. In the interest of giving you more power and freedom and making sure you know about all the options, tools and shortcuts available in the never ending quest to coherently manage your domain assets, we’ve compiled a list of “10 things you may have always wished for but didn’t know you already had”.

Those things are:

1. 2-factor authentication
2. Account access controls (ACLs) and Country-based login restrictions
3. Domain Apex aliasing (ANAME or root CNAME)
4. easyAPI: a RESTful API
5. iCal Feed for your domain expiries
6. Event notifications
7. Bulk DNS Updates
8. Restore zonedata from backups / Rollback
9. Portfolio Sharing
10. Host your email (easyMail), WordPress (easyPress) or website (easyWEB)

Let’s get started

#1) 2-Factor Authentication

Protect your most crucial asset: your domain names by adding the extra security of 2-Factor Authentication.

Log into your account and click on the security menu item on the left and you’ll now see 2-Factor Authentication (along with a few other security settings you may not have been aware of.)

You can enable 2-Factor authentication using either SMS or email (Even adding an out-of-band email address for 2-factor authentication can make your account a lot more secure). You can set 3 modes:

1. enable 2nd factor for all logins
2. only use 2nd factor on logins outside your account ACL
3. only use 2nd factor on logins outside your Country Based Restrictions

#2) Account Access Control Lists (ACLs) and Geo-restrictions.

Lock down your accounts even by limiting logins by IP address, netblocks, hostnames or even by country.

Even in a bad case scenario where your account password is somehow compromised, if you have an account ACL on, or logins limited to your own country it can save your bacon.

Combine this with #5 Event Notifications and you have a winning combination, because you’ll know something is up before the attacker can actually do anything within your account.

#3) Domain Apex Aliasing (“ANAME”)

A simple method to map domain variations, feeders, and other domains into another main domain.

Normally you cannot create a “CNAME” or “alias” record for your domain apex. (If your domain is example.com, then you are allowed to create a cname for www.example.com but you couldn’t for just example.com). Well now you can.

Just enter “@” as your hostname in the CNAME editor and instead of getting an error, you’ll now get a message that this will be implemented via an ANAME record

#4) REST API

Integrate your DNS functionality with your own environment or ecosystem.

Our API has been live for most of the year and we are constantly adding new methods and capabilities to it. See http://www.easyAPI.net for details and start playing in the sandbox today!

#5) Event Notifications

Never get caught off-guard, stay on top of what’s happening within your account and with your domains, keep your team informed and up to speed.

You can enable event notifications for the following occurrences depicted below:

And have the notification delivered either via email or SMS.

#6) iCal Feed for your domain expiries

Never let an accidental expiry disrupt your website again!

If you’re like us, you probably get so much email that every once in awhile, one slips through and (usually at the worst possible time) – and a domain goes off air in an inadvertent expiry.

Well you can setup an iCal feed with all of your domain expirations, load it in any iCal enabled device, application or service (like Google calendar, iCal on Macs and iPhones).

If  you have a lot of domains and it can be hard to keep track of them all, especially which ones need renewing.

Now it’s easy: if it’s in your calendar, it needs renewing, if it’s not, it doesn’t. No news is good news.

This one has saved some monster domains for me on more than one occasion.

Start using your personal feed by logging into the renewals management, and down at the bottom you’ll see your unique iCal URL:

#7) Bulk DNS Edits

Your mass migrations and large scale cutovers just got a whole lot easier.

Under the “utilities” module you will see our Bulk DNS tool which lets you update all matching IP addresses or CNAME targets to a new value, optionally limiting them by batch size. I just had to move a pile of parked domains from one server to another and this made it a snap – I did it in batches of 100 while I watched the series finale of Breaking Bad – it beat the hell out of doing it one by each.

 #8) Restore Zone From Backups

Screwed up your zone? Point something to the wrong IP and you overwrote what the old one was? (I’ve done that) Banish those “oh crap!” moments forever.

If you’ve done something to your zone you wish you hadn’t, you can “Undo” it by reverting to your most recent backup.

#9) Portfolios and  sharing

Helps keep track of large portfolios and stay organized across multiple projects or business units.

Makes collaborating with team members, consultants and freelancers easy and secure.

You can group your domains into “portfolios”, let’s say you’re a freelance webmaster with 50 domains across multiple clients, simply group each client’s domains into it’s own portfolio.

Then you can “share” those portfolios with another easyDNS account, either your client puts their own domains in one and then gives you access to modify the DNS settings, or you put them in one of your portfolios and give them access to the administrative functions.

Detailed instructions on setting up your portfolios can be found here.

 

#10) Host your website, email or WordPress

And finally, a lot of people are still surprised to find out they can host their email here (not just forward it), we have fully functional IMAP hosting, with webmail, spam and virus filtering and mailout functionality, a.k.a “easyMail.

Joe Kissell recently wrote a great article on Macworld on why he left Gmail in favour of easyMail, complete with detailed instructions and screen captures on how to do it.

It is also important to note that all easyMail servers are in Canada and none of them are in the US. That’s important to a lot of people for various reasons. (Stand by for an announcement about privacy enhancements we’re adding to easyMail very soon).

easyMail bundles with the various packages here as follows:

• DNS Hosting pkg: 3 easyMail boxes
• DNS Pro pkg: 10 easyMail boxes
• Enterprise DNS: 25 easyMail boxes

It’s still hard to believe those packages whenever we look at them. We must have been high or something.

Managed WordPress Hosting

We launched easyPress.ca, fully managed wordpress hosting, also located right here in Canada back at the beginning of the summer and the people on it are enjoying the speed and performance. All easyPress packages come with the easyDNS service included, so again, just oodles of value.

easyWEB: cpanel Web Hosting

The most recent addition here is easyWEB, cpanel based web hosting. Customers have been asking us for this for literally, over a decade. Now it’s here. Again, all the servers, data and so forth is here in Canada. We built the infrastructure ourselves and we’re supporting it.

Conclusion

We hope you find one or two hidden gems in this list, it’s always nice when some item you had on your “wish list” turns out to already be available right there where you already are.