Change Nameservers

Nameservers decide who answers DNS questions for your domain. Changing them moves DNS hosting: to us, to Cloudflare, to a control panel on your VPS, or to your old host. The registration itself does not move. This is the one domain change that can take a site down if done in the wrong order, so the order is the point of this guide.

Before you switch: copy the zone#

The new DNS host answers only with records that exist there. Before changing nameservers, recreate every record you rely on at the new host: A/AAAA for the site, MX/SPF/DKIM/DMARC for mail, and any verification TXT records. Then wait for them to be visible by querying the new host directly:

dig +short A example.com @ns1.new-host.example
dig +short MX example.com @ns1.new-host.example

Only when the new host answers correctly is it safe to switch. Skipping this step is why "I changed nameservers and my email stopped" is a support classic.

Change the nameservers in MyNobull#

1. Open the domain. Log in to MyNobull, go to Domains, then My Domains, click the domain, and open the Nameservers tab.
2. Choose default or custom. Use default nameservers keeps DNS in MyNobull (edit records with Manage DNS Records). Use custom nameservers lets you enter two or more hostnames from the new host, for example ada.ns.cloudflare.com and bob.ns.cloudflare.com.
3. Save. The registry updates within minutes; resolvers around the world pick it up over the following hours as their caches expire.

Verify#

dig +short NS example.com @1.1.1.1
whois example.com | grep -i "name server"

Both should list the new nameservers. Then re-check the site and mail records through a public resolver, exactly as in Point a Domain at Your VPS.

Private (child) nameservers#

Running your own DNS on a VPS or control panel and want ns1.example.com to be its nameserver? Register the child nameservers with their IPs under the domain's Private Nameservers tab first (this creates the glue records at the registry), then set the domain's nameservers to those names. Two nameservers on two different servers is the minimum for anything you care about; DNS is the one service that must be up for everything else to be reachable.

Common mistakes#

• Only one nameserver entered. Registries want at least two.
• Mixed hosts. All nameservers should belong to the same DNS host; a mix answers inconsistently.
• Switching to a host that has no zone yet. See the first section; the wait is worth it.
• Editing records in MyNobull while nameservers point elsewhere. Those edits do nothing until the nameservers point back to our defaults.