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NS

NS Record

Active

The NS (Name Server) record specifies the authoritative name servers for a domain zone.

zone TTL IN NS nameserver

In one line

The NS (Name Server) record specifies the authoritative name servers for a domain zone. NS records delegate DNS authority – they tell resolvers which servers to query for authoritative answers about a domain. Every domain must have at least two NS records for redundancy.

Description

NS records identify the authoritative name servers for a DNS zone. When a recursive resolver needs to resolve a domain, it starts at the root, follows NS records to TLD servers, then to the domain's authoritative nameservers. NS records at the zone apex are essential – without them, DNS delegation fails.

Examples

Typical NS records
shell
example.com.    86400    IN    NS    ns1.example.com.
example.com.    86400    IN    NS    ns2.example.com.
Check authoritative NS
shell
dig example.com NS +short

ns1.example.com.
ns2.example.com.

Related Record Types

SOA

Specification

RFC 1035 – DNS NS record specification →