EDU.PH DNS Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
0) What is the DNS?
1) What domains can I register?
2) Who can register an EDU.PH domain?
3) What are the steps for registering an EDU.PH domain?
4) I have not received the Form(s) your system was supposed to e-mail me. What is wrong?
5) Why do we only have one week (seven days) to submit all the documents?
6) Why can we not make modifications, even slight ones,
to the Request Form you e-mailed us?
7) How can we modify our DNS information? How often can
we make modifications?
8) Who can request for modifications on our DNS information?
9) What if both our Technical and Administrative contacts
are no longer reachable?
10) What is a manual revision of DNS information and how
do we ask for one?
11) I e-mailed the Request Form I received from your system
but I did not get a reply? What is wrong?
12) I am sure I did not modify the Request Form. I merely
pressed the "Reply" button. What is wrong?
13) How long does it take for our domain information to
show up in the Internet?
14) Our domain has disappeared from the Internet? What
happened?
15) We received a notice that our domain will expire soon
but I know it should expire next year. What should I do?
16) What are the maximum and minimum renewal periods?
17) How can we be sure that our DNS information had been
properly loaded by PHNET?
18) We already paid our renewal fee and have sent you
proof of payment. How can we be sure that our registration would not be deleted?
19) We want to modify the domain name of our school's current
registration. What should we do?
20) How should we configure our Domain Name Server?
21) I have other questions that are neither answered by
this FAQ nor by your form. What should I do?
22) What is the difference between the PHNET EDU.PH DNS Service
and the PHNET EDU.PH DNS Hosting Service?
23) What is wrong with the administration Philippine Country Code Top-level
Domain (PHccTLD) .PH?
What is a DNS?
Please read this
Wikipedia entry to understand more about the topic.
What domains can I register?
Only domains under the EDU.PH can be registered through the PHNET DNS System.
The Department of Science and Technology (DOST) is the domain administrator
for GOV.PH.
Who can register an EDU.PH domain?
Only bona-fide educational and training institutions operating in the Philippines can
register under the EDU.PH domain. Tertiary institutions have to be
recognized by the CHED. Primary and secondary institutions have to be recognized
by the Department of Education. State educational institutions have to be
recognized by the state. Training institutions have to be recognized
by TESDA.
Any authorized representative of an educational institution
can cause the registration of a domain in behalf of the institution..
What are the steps for registering an EDU.PH domain?
1. Prepare the following documents:
a) A copy of the Department of Education or CHED or
TESDA certificate of recognition for the insitution. For State educational institutions,
a copy of the certificate or legislation which founded/recognized
the institution.
b) A letter from the institution's president or
principal,
written in the school's letterhead, authorizing the representative to register
the domain in behalf of the institution. You may use this sample letter (PDF, PostScript) as your guide.
2. Properly fill up the form found in http://services.ph.net/dns
3. Reply to the Request Form which will be e-mailed to you after you
finish step (2). After this step, your request is classified as PENDING.
4. Within one week after step (3), submit the following by fax, snail-mail,
or courier:
a) The documents you prepared in step (1) for the
insitution.
b) Proof of payment of the registration fee (i.e.
photocopy of the deposit slip, receipt, etc.). See http://services.ph.net/payment.html
for the details. Please be sure that the proof of payment indicates
the domain that was registered as PENDING in step (3).
NOTE: All PENDING requests are automatically deleted from our
system, without any notice to anyone, after the seven-day period has expired.
I have not received the Form(s) your system was supposed to e-mail me. What is wrong?
Our system automatically e-mails the necessary Form(s) after a request is
triggered through http://services.ph.net/dns. If you have not received the Form(s) after
a reasonable amount of time, the e-mail address you used is probably
not reachable through the Internet.
Sometimes, people registering their school's NEW domain name choose
e-mail addresses which use the domain name they are registering.
For example, myschool.edu.ph will use an e-mail address of
president@myschool.edu.ph for their contact address. Obviously, because
myschool.edu.ph does not yet exist (this is why it is being registered), then
any e-mail address which has @myschool.edu.ph is not valid and will NEVER
receive any e-mail from our system.
Please ensure that the e-mail address you use is reachable through
the Internet before doing anything else.
Why do we only have one week (seven days) to submit all
the documents?
PENDING requests act like reservations to particular domains. To prevent
permanent reservations, we delete PENDING requests after one week (seven
days).
Why can we not make modifications, even slight ones, to
the Request Form you e-mailed us?
When the Form has been modified, it is impossible for us to determine who
made the modification and for what reasons. It could have been your
mailer making slight modifications or it could have been a third-party
changing the important DNS information. To prevent the latter, we
assume the worst and just invalidate Forms which had been modified -- no
matter how slight..
How can we modify our DNS information? How often can we
make modifications?
You may modify the domain information as often as you need to. There are no
charges for modifying your DNS information. Note however that DNS information
does not include the domain name. Domain names can not be modified. To
modify your DNS information, just follow these steps:
1. Properly fill up the form found in http://services.ph.net/dns.
2. The generated Request Form will be e-mailed to the Technical and
Administrative
contact of the domain for verification. If you are neither the Technical
nor the Administrative contact, you will not get the Request Form.
The person who generated the form will merely get an e-mail notice saying
that both the Technical and Administrative contacts had been
sent the Form.
3. To approve the requested modification, either the Technical or
the Administrative contact must e-mail back the Request Form generated
in (1). We only need the approval of one of the two contacts.
4. After we receive the Verification Request Form in (3), the requested
modifications will immediately be placed in our database. If the
IP addresses and host names of the DNS servers had been modified, these
modifications will be immediately loaded into the EDU.PH DNS servers.
Who can request for modifications on our DNS information?
Anyone can visit http://services.ph.net/dns and
generate the necessary Request Form for revisions. However, only the Technical
or Administrative contact of the domain can approve these requests.
What if both our Technical and Administrative contacts
are no longer reachable?
The automatic revision system is dependent on the ability of either the
Administrative or Technical contact of the domain to receive e-mail
from PHNET so that one of them can approve a requested modification.
The approving authority is either one of the two contact persons.
If neither of these are reachable through their e-mail addresses,
PHNET must manually intervene to effect the changes. We only
intervene after an institution asks for a manual revision of
DNS information.
What is a manual revision of DNS information and how do
we ask for one?
Manual revisions of DNS information are done by the authorized PHNET
administrator by manually modifying the DNS database. Institutions
who need to modify their DNS information but whose contact persons,
as found in the PHNET database, are no longer reachable through e-mail
should request for a manual revision.
To effect a manual revision, the following steps must be followed:
1) Visit http://services.ph.net/dns and click on the "Request for a PHNET Manual Revision" option. This will generate an Authorization Letter which
will be e-mailed to you.
2) Cut and paste the Authorization Letter into your institution's
letterhead. It must then be signed by the head of the institution.
3) Fax, snail-mail, or hand-deliver the Authorization Letter to
PHNET.
4) Submit proof of payment. Visit http://services.ph.net/payment.html
for the details.
PHNET will verify that the request is bonafide and then make the necessary
modifications.
As you can see, the procedure is a little tedious. To avoid it (and
the payment associated with it), you must ensure that your current contact
persons transfer their responsibilities to the new contact persons before
they leave your employ.
I e-mailed the Request Form I received from your system
but I did not get a reply. What is wrong?
Our system automatically discards Request Forms which had been modified,
no matter how slight the modification. If you did not receive an
e-mail acknowledgement from our system after a reasonable amount of time,
this is most probably because the Request Form you sent us had been modified
in some shape, form, or manner.
I am sure I did not modify the Request Form. I merely
pressed the "Reply" button. What is wrong?
If you did not modify the Form, then your mail system probably did. Does
your mail system use HTML format? Does it insert spaces or other characters
to the e-mail you reply to? Does it automatically truncate or linewrap
text after a certain length?
You must configure your mail system not to do any of the above.
You can safely configure your client to linewrap after 79 characters.
Our system is configured to read only 7-bit ASCII characters, i.e.
English letters. Please make sure that your e-mail does not contain
non-English letters such as the "enye (n~)". Different mail clients
encode non-English letters differently and it leads to problems.
Our system encodes it in one way and your client might have encoded
it in a different way causing our system to reject your e-mail.
We have discovered that Yahoomail.com
mangles the Verification Form and we have
not found a way to configure it to prevent this from happening
because Yahoomail had removed the configuration options.
We suggest that you do not use Yahoomail.
If you insist on using
Yahoomail.com, you should instead use the POP Access and Forwarding
feature of Yahoomail. With this feature, you can use any
e-mail client such as Mozilla Thunderbird or Microsoft Outlook Express
to retrieve your e-mail from Yahoomail.com. You can then use
the e-mail client to reply to the Verification E-mail that our system
sent out.
For Gmail users, do the following:
- Click on the email you received from PHNET
- Click on the "Reply" button
- Look for and click on the "Plain Text" button above the quoted e-mail you received from PHNET. If you see "Rich Formatting", that means that your e-mail will already be sent in plain text and you don't need to do anything.
- Click on the "Send" button
How long does it take for our domain information to show
up in the Internet?
For new registrations and manual revisions, your information will be
placed in our database on the same working day that you have completed all
the requirements. For modifications, our databases are automatically updated
after we receive the approval from the Technical or Administrative contact.
The new information is immediately available to the entire Internet.
However, the speed by which the other DNS servers propagate this new information
is dependent on the configuration of your DNS server(s), not PHNET's servers.
Our domain has disappeared from the Internet? What happened?
Is it possible that your domain registration has already expired? At least
one month before a domain expires, our system automatically e-mails a notice
to both the Technical and Administrative contact so that they can take
the necessary steps to renew the registration. One week before the domain
expires, we e-mail a final warning to the contact persons.
Our system automatically removes expired
domains from the EDU.PH DNS system without any other notices being
sent to the concerned contact persons.
Could it be that your DNS servers are at fault? Are they reachable through
the Internet? Are they properly configured?
As a final check, you can query our DNS database here.
If it shows up, then your problem is most probably not related to PHNET's
DNS system.
We received a notice that our domain will expire soon
but I know it should expire next year. What should I do?
We probably goofed on our accounting. Please immediately reply to
the e-mail and say that we goofed. Please include receipt numbers,
etc to prove that we indeed goofed. Without your reply, our system
assumes that there are no problems and everything is correct and will remove
your registration from the EDU.PH DNS system.
When you send us a reply, it raises a red flag and allows us to double
check our accounting to verify that we indeed goofed. If we did, we will
make all the ncessary corrections. If we did not, we will say that
we did not. At any rate, you should receive an e-mail from us detailing
the actions we have taken.
What are the maximum and minimum renewal periods?
You may renew your domains for a minimum period of one (1) year or
a maximum period of two (2) years.
We send out a renewal notice at least 1 month before the expiration
of the domain and a final notice at least 1 week before the expiration.
The month and day of expiration does not change when you pay the renewal fee.
We merely add 1 or 2 years to the year of expiration, depending on the renewal
period you choose. For example, one month prior to expiration, you pay a
1-year renewal fee for a domain expiring on 25 Oct 2006. Your domain will
be valid until 25 Oct 2007 (one year after current expiration date)
rather than on 25 Sep 2007 (one year after the payment date). In other words,
you don't lose a month by paying one month ahead of time.
When you pay the renewal fee via a bank deposit to our account,
you must make sure that you pay for the renewal period of
one or two years. We will return any amount in excess of
a two-year renewal payment after subtracting a processing
fee.
If you pay through a check mailed to our office, we will
not encash the check if it is in excess of the fee
for a two-year renewal period or less than the fee for a
one-year renewal period. We will destroy the check.
How can we be sure that our DNS information had been properly
loaded by PHNET?
Run to your nearest UNIX workstation and use any of the following
utilities:
dig Type "dig @gabriela.ph.net ns myschool.edu.ph"
whois Type "whois myschool@gabriela.ph.net"
nslookup Type "nslookup myschool.edu.ph"
The reply you get from
the DNS server gabriela.ph.net will show the information for myschool.edu.ph
loaded in the EDU.PH DNS server.
The information from gabriela.ph.net
will always be the latest information.
For those using the Microsoft O.S., you can use "nslookup" until Microsoft
realizes that they should include a version of "dig" in their system.
OK, so you want the easy way. Check it here.
We already paid our renewal fee and have sent you proof
of payment. How can we be sure that our registration would not be
deleted?
Payments are credited to the respective domains at the end of each working
day. This automatically triggers our system to send e-mails to both
the Technical and Administrative contact persons notifying them that the
domain had been renewed. If neither of your contact persons had received
the notification e-mail within a reasonable period, please notify us immediately
by sending an e-mail to support AT ph.net (replace the AT with the @ sign) so that
we can check the problem.
We want to modify the domain name of our school's current
registration. What should we do?
Domain names can not be modified. If you wish to have a new domain name for
your school, you should register a new domain.
How should we configure our Domain Name Server?
Domain Name Servers are tricky to configure for those who do not
know how they work. We suggest that you contact your ISP for
information on how this should be done. PHNET's EDU.PH registration
service does not include the configuration of your DNS.
However, PHNET can setup and configure an Internet Server for
your institution using Open-Source (free) software for only PhP 10,000.
For this price, we also setup/configure/install the WWW server, Internet
mail server, Proxy Caching, and even a DHCP and File Server for your
Microsoft Network! You would never need a Microsoft license for your
Internet server! Email support AT ph.net (replace the AT with the @ sign)
for more information.
You may want to look at this
example of DNS records.
I have other questions that are neither answered by your
FAQ nor by your form. What should I do?
E-mail all your questions to support AT ph.net (replace the AT with the @ sign).
If the answers are neither in http://services.ph.net/dns
nor in this FAQ, we will send you the answers ASAP. We might even
include them in this FAQ. If they are found in either of these two
resources, then will just tell you to RTFM or just politely say FAQ you.
What is the difference between the PHNET EDU.PH DNS Service
and the PHNET EDU.PH DNS Hosting Service?
PHNET is the registry for the EDU.PH domain name. This means that PHNET
runs the DNS servers for the EDU.PH domain.
The EDU.PH DNS service is for recognizing your school's domain (e.g. myschool)
to be a valid EDU.PH domain (e.g. myschool.edu.ph). Without this service,
your school's domain will never be part of the EDU.PH DNS.
The PHNET EDU.PH DNS Hosting Service is designed for institutions who
do not wish to run the DNS service for their own domains (e.g. myschool.edu.ph).
Through this service, PHNET will run the DNS servers for myschool.edu.ph
in addition to running the EDU.PH DNS servers. This DNS Hosting service
is not a requirement. Institutions may opt to run their own DNS servers
or contract other companies for the service.
What is wrong with the administration of the Philippine Country
Code Top-level Domain (PHccTLD) .PH?
The PHccTLD is a community resource which is currently being run as
a private resource by a company called dotPH, owned by the PHccTLD administrator
Mr Jose Emmanuel Disini. Mr Disini is the sole beneficiary
of the PHccTLD maintaining control of this resource as if he owned it.
The Philippine Internet community has no say on how the PHccTLD
is administered. Mr Disini is not accountable to the Philippine Internet community
in managing the .PH community resource. This is wrong and this must be corrected.
Read more on PHccTLD Resources.
Copyleft © 1999 -2011 Philippine Network Foundation, Inc (PHNET)
. All rights reserved.
Revised: September 9, 2011