Sometimes it can be confusing to know where your various web services are hosted, especially if you work with a 3rd party IT provider who may manage certain parts of your systems for you.
Below are some tips you can use to work out where your services are hosted.
Where is my domain registered?
Your domain is central to your online services, and is registered through a domain registrar. The domain is then configured with nameservers, which point to a DNS service which in turn tells people trying to visit your website or email servers, where you’re hosted.
You can look up your domain registrar by using a public WHOIS service like the ones listed below:
For any non-.au domains, you can use this tool provided by ICANN: https://lookup.icann.org/
For any .au domains, you can use this tool provided by auDA: https://whois.auda.org.au/
When searching for a non-.au domain, look for the Registrar Information and the Reseller Information. If the Registrar is listed as TUCOWS, INC., and the Reseller is listed as Micron21, then your domain is with us, and you can manage it from your Micron21 Domain Panel account. If your domain is with another registrar, then the information there should help you track down who it’s with.
When searching for a .au domain, look for the “Registrar Name”. If this is listed as Micron21 Data Centre Pty Ltd, then your domain is with us, and you can manage it from your Micron21 Domain Panel account. If your domain is with another registrar, then the information there should help you track down who it’s with.
Where is my DNS hosted?
DNS, or Domain Name Service, is the method by which your domain name is translated into IP addresses, and can be pointed to services on the internet. For a more detailed explanation of what DNS is, you can read this article from Fortinet. To see where your DNS is hosted, perform a WHOIS check using the methods above and look for the Nameservers that are listed. You will usually have between two and four nameservers listed.
If your DNS is hosted with a webhosting service with Micron21, then your nameservers will be either M21DNS.NET or FASTDNS.COM.AU.
If your DNS is hosted with your domain in your Micron21 Domain Panel account, then your nameservers will be VDNS.AU.
If your nameservers are pointed anywhere else, then your DNS will be with another provider.
Where is my website and email hosted?
Typically, you will need to pay attention to A records and MX records. A records point domains to IP addresses, and MX records are used to tell emails where to go. Looking at a DNS zone for the first time can be very confusing, but if you keep an eye out for some specific things, it can be much easier to make sense of.
The best place to check your DNS zone is always by logging into the service that hosts your DNS and seeing what is there. However if you don’t have access to that service, then you can check things publicly.
To see records in your DNS zone, you can use this tool: https://www.nslookup.io/
(Please note that this tool will only check for common records, and cannot find things like subdomains in your zone.)
To see where your website is hosted, check the A records. The A records will point to an IP address, and if your website is hosted with Micron21, then it should look like one of the below addresses:
27.131.109.XX
27.131.110.XX
27.131.111.XX
To see where your email is hosted, check the MX records. MX records can be a bit more confusing, as an MX record must point to a domain, rather than an IP address, so you need to then check where that domain name points to. If your website is hosted with Micron21, and your email is pointed to your domain name, then your mail is also hosted with Micron21. If your website is hosted with another provider (such as Wix or Squarespace), then you may have an MX record that points to something like mail.yourdomain.com.au. If this is the case, then on the nslookup.io website, you can click on that domain, then check the IP address of the A record for it. If that address points to one of the above IP addresses, then your email is hosted with Micron21.
Please also keep in mind that if you use a proxying service, such as CloudFlare, your true IP address may be obfuscated. If your nameservers are configured to point to CloudFlare, we recommend you log into your CloudFlare account and check your DNS records there, rather than using a public lookup tools.