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.
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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.
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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..
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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.

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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.

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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).
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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..
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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.

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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.
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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.
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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.

 
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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.
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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:

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.
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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.
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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.

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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.
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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.

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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.

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Revised: September 9, 2011