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I'm in the use case where I had nothing on this domain, nothing was started on either side, I just bought the domain on the wrong service.

I imagine it's possible to transfer ownership to AWS, so that I may start managing the DNS from there rather than from dreamhost.

I probably could have purchased the domain from route 53 in the first place but this is now done and I don't want for the year under dreamhost to time out to start using it. nor do I want to use dreamhost to manage this url since dreamhost charges quite a lot more.

I've found the amazon guide that's my exact situation, but as per ususal with these guides they're super afraid of providing a concrete example and get into super abstracts with reused terminology for different meaning resulting in an unusable jumble of uncertainties : https://docs.aws.amazon.com/Route53/latest/DeveloperGuide/migrate-dns-domain-inactive.html

So I've gotten to :

Step 3: Create records (inactive domains)

I've just manually edited the values that were created by default by route 53 when I created that hosted zone to the ones I found in the dreamhost DNS configuration :

hosted zone values

but I doubt that's what I have to do to transfer the domain especially since the step after that basically sais to change it back to what it was.

So what is it exactly I'm supposed to do in order to transfer the domain to amazon (route 53)?

tatsu
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1 Answers1

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Domain registration and DNS resolution are related, but separate entities. It seems like you decided you want route53 to serve your DNS entries. Given that, you have two choices.

Choice 1: Keep domain registered with dreamhost

If you do this, you need to instruct dreamhost to look up DNS entries for your domain at route53. This can be accomplished by setting the NS servers on dreamhost to point to route53. There are detailed instructions for this at AWS here. What you have in your step3 is backwards. Step 3 is just saying if you want HOST.yourdomain.com, to add a entry 'HOST' into the hosted zone. You should not touch the NS or SOA entries on the route53 hosted zone away from their original settings. You can simply delete the zone and start over again.

Background: Dreamhost will populate the NS entries by default and they will be the ones queried how to resolve HOST.yourdomain.com. However, if you don't provide dreamhost any information that they should refer the requests to route53, it has no way of knowing that. You need to tell dreamhost that the NS entries (Nameserver) should point to route53's servers. That way, the user trying to resolve HOST.yourdomain.com will be pointed to route53. When it asks route53 what the IP is, all will be well if you setup your hosted zone to resolve that entry. This is what you are going to do on step 4 from the AWS documentation.

Choice 2: Transfer your domain registration to route53

This is a little more up front work, but may be easier in the long run. You are permitted to transfer the domain to another domain registrar. You'll have to follow instructions at both the giving side (dreamhost) and the gaining side (route53).

NOTE: ICANN does enforce a 60 day lock on moves. If you just registered your domain, you will need to wait 60 days before the transfer process can begin. Also, do not worry about 'double paying' for the year. You are required to purchase at least one more year of domain registration, but it will be appended to the end date of your expiration (it won't start it over). Once you move to route53, especially if you already are using route53 for the hosted zone, you will have one less place to pay and administer.

Additional NOTE: Because of the 60 day lock, if it has been less than 60 days since you created the domain, choice #1 is the only choice during that period if you want to serve DNS records from route53.

Foghorn
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