About

The NS (Name Server) record identifies the authoritative DNS servers for a domain or subdomain. These servers contain the actual DNS records for the domain and respond to DNS queries.

When a DNS resolver needs to find records for a domain, it first queries the parent zone (e.g., .com for example.com) for NS records. These NS records point to the authoritative name servers that have the actual DNS data.

NS records are also used to delegate subdomains to different name servers, which is common for large organizations managing different parts of their infrastructure separately.

Format & Example

Record Format

domain.com. IN NS ns1.provider.com.

Example

example.com. 86400 IN NS ns1.example.com.
example.com. 86400 IN NS ns2.example.com.

This domain uses ns1.example.com and ns2.example.com as its authoritative name servers.

Common Uses

•Defining authoritative name servers for a domain
•Delegating subdomains to different DNS providers
•Setting up secondary/backup name servers
•Transferring DNS hosting between providers

Best Practices & Tips

•Always have at least 2 NS records for redundancy
•NS records should have long TTLs (86400 seconds or more)
•Name servers should be geographically distributed
•Ensure NS hostnames have valid A/AAAA records (glue records)

Related Record Types

A SOA AAAA

Related Tools

Propagation

Check NS propagation

WHOIS Lookup

Domain registration info

Name Server Record