Non-identical DNS IP requirements for .CA domains

Hi guys,

Apologies if this topic isn’t categorized correctly - or if the admins would like to move it to somewhere more appropriate, but I couldn’t think of another spot to place this.

Here’s the issue I’ve run into that I think is a little unique and some users might be running into in the future:

I recently discovered that CIRA, which is the authority that manages .ca domain names for Canada, has a requirement that DNS servers pointing to a .ca domain must have two non-identical IP addresses.

Previously I was using CyberPanel as the DNS server, but right now because I’ve never done this before I’m trying to teach myself how to set up more than one IPv4 address on an AlmaLinux server, which I hope will allow me to continue using CyberPanel and get my .ca domains up and running again.

Does anyone have any experience or direction/advice to offer regarding this? This might be something to help out with for Canadian users in the future as well since non-identical DNS IPs are a requirement for Canadian domain names.

Thank you in advance!

Sounds very weird never heard of this… Can you link source for this requirement?

Errr well I can’t find the specifications on CIRA.ca itself, but here’s an explanation from GoDaddy:

Nameserver requirements

• Must use: 2-6 Nameservers, unique IP address
• Can use: Only one IPv4 per host, only one IPv6 per host
• Cannot use: DNSSEC

This is news to me as well, I’m not sure when they instituted this policy.

So the requirements state that you can only use one IPv4 per server.

Easiest thing to do would be to just use a free secondary DNS provider, just Google and you’ll find a load of them. I haven’t used one for a while but from memory BuddyNS, Puck, 1984 and HE are all pretty good and simple to set up.

Yes, I just went ahead and purchased an extra IPv4 address, I just had to teach myself how to set it up on the VPS server.

But the whole point and idea of the requirement is that the second IP points to another server not the same one, the whole idea is redundancy.

You need not have to use 2 IPv4 address for same server. I guess you are confusing things yourself.

If godaddy is your domain provider, then you can either keep godaddy itself as your DNS provider by keeping their default nameservers and then just changing the A record of the domain to your server IP where cyberpanel is installed.

Secondly, you can keep Cloudflare as your DNS provider by entering cloudflare nameservers (you will get 2 different nameservers from cloudflare) and then having A record of the domain to your server IP where cyberpanel is installed.

The 2 IP requirements are for nameservers. Technically there should be minimum 2 nameserver details to be mentioned in some hosts and usually people if self hosted DNS, apply same single IP address in both the nameserver field.
If godaddy restricts in using same ip address in the nameserver field, then you can make use of cloudflare for the DNS management.

So are you saying that the unique IP nameserver requirements are only a GoDaddy thing, and have nothing to do with CIRA’s requirements?

That would be surprising that GoDaddy would have a policy like that if it’s not necessary, I should probably dig a little deeper or get in touch with CIRA to see if the policy is theirs or GoDaddy’s.

You may have confused yourself with nameserver and DNS A records for your domain.
Nameserver do require 2 entries (each entry is associated with an IP address), giving both entry same IP address too is valid with many providers (dont know about godaddy as of now as I dont use them anymore).

I recommend you to use Cloudflare to manage your DNS as its faster and better (for DNS management). Associating your domain to cloudflare will give you 2 nameserver entry which you need to input at your godaddy registrar.