I am looking for a domain name registrant. Where can I look it up?
The Whois is an easy-to-use tool for checking the availability of a .nl domain name. If the domain name is already taken, you can see who has registered it.
On the page looking up a domain name you will find more information about what a domain name is, how the Whois works and how the privacy of personal data is protected. Alternatively, you can go straight to look for a domain name via the Whois.
I would like to transfer my domain name to another registrar. What is the procedure?
To get your domain name transferred, you need the token (unique ID number) for your domain name. Your existing registrar has the token and is obliged to give it to you within five days, if you ask for it. The procedure for changing your registrar is described on the page transferring your domain name.
The details registered about me/my company are incorrect or out of date. How can I get them updated?
To update the contact details associated with your domain name, you need to contact your registrar. Read more about updating contact details.
Why is my domain name in quarantine?
When a domain name is cancelled, we aren't told the reason, so we can't tell you. You'll need to ask your registrar. The advantage of quarantine is that, if a name's cancelled by mistake, you can always get it back.
One common reason is that the contract between you and your registrar says you've got to renew the registration every year. If you haven't set up automatic renewal and you don't renew manually, the registration will expire.
Ik heb een klacht over mijn provider/registrar. Kan ik daarvoor bij SIDN terecht?
Wanneer je een klacht hebt over of een geschil met je registrar dan zijn er verschillende mogelijkheden om tot een oplossing te komen. Hierover lees je meer op pagina klacht over registrar. SIDN heeft geen formele klachtenprocedure voor het behandelen van een klacht over jouw registrar.
What conditions do I have to meet as a registrar?
Would you like to be able to register domain names for customers or for your own organisation by dealing directly with SIDN? If so, you can become a .nl registrar. Read more about the conditions and how to apply for registrar status on the page becoming a registrar.
DNS privacy – and DNS-over-HTTPS (DoH) in particular – are topics that the SIDN Labs team has written about before. DoH is a relatively new standard for encrypted DNS communication, which has been the focus of considerable community attention in recent years. Although the technology is contentious, development has been rapid, with more and more public DoH services coming on line around the world. Some of the first public services were provided by tech giants such as Google and CloudFlare, prompting further discussion about 'centralisation of the internet’. Existing DNS service providers, including NextDNS, have been adding DoH services to their portfolios as well. And the list of services continues to grow. A few ISPs, XS4ALL included, now offer DoH in their closed customer environments. There's also been action here at SIDN Labs, where we have our own experimental DoH server running. We're doing a lot of testing with it ourselves, and the wider internet community is invited to make use of it as well. So we thought it would be useful to provide some additional information by way of this blog.
With DoH, DNS queries aren't sent over the network in the form of readable UDP messages, as in conventional DNS traffic. Instead, TLS-encrypted requests are sent using the HTTP protocol (i.e. as TCP messages). However, the technology has both pros and cons, so opinion about DoH is divided. On the one hand, encryption means that messages are private and that falsification by malicious hackers is less likely. On the other hand, it's argued that DoH could actually undermine privacy, because HTTP lends itself to tracking based on cookies and other forms of fingerprinting. The fact that it's harder for a firewall to block DoH traffic is an advantage in some people's eyes, but a worrying feature for others.
Criticasters prefer alternatives such as DNS-over-TLS (DoT) and DNScrypt. However, there's debate about the performance of the alternatives too. Claim and counterclaim abound as to which is fastest, most reliable and most scalable. One thing is nevertheless certain: development is relentless, especially where DoH is concerned.
DoH in the wild
The DoH standard has developed quite quickly. It all started with Edward Snowden's disclosures, which triggered a wave of 'privacy awareness'. Against that backdrop, the privacy of the DNS came under scrutiny.
Among those embracing the new vision of privacy were several major internet companies, including Mozilla and Google, who added DoH functionality to their Firefox and Chrome browsers. The unconventional move prompted debate, because the DNS had traditionally been the province of the operating system. The assumption of DNS responsibility by individual applications has major implications for system management and fault detection. Nevertheless, the two browser providers decided to press ahead. Initially, Mozilla was the standout driver of change, but others have since come to the fore.
DoH is now available in Google’s Chrome, will soon be added to Microsoft Windows, and is experimentally supported by the Opera browser, to give just a few examples. Various producers of leading open-source software, including PowerDNS and Unbound, offer or are working on their own DoH implementations as well. On GitHub too, good-quality open-source DoH software is increasingly easy to find.
SIDN Labs' experimental DoH server
Although there are now many public DoH resolvers out there, we couldn't find any that also performed user authentication, which we felt was a valuable feature. Partly for that reason, we decided to set up our own. On our experimental DoH-server, we opted to use GitHub software, which is written in the Go programming language:
https://github.com/m13253/dns-over-https
The server was set up to run in combination with an Apache web server:
https://doh.sidnlabs.nl/dns-query
(NB: the server requires a user name and password.)
We're using the test system to study how an authenticating DoH server interacts with browsers. We're also using the associated DoH client – which is easy to install – to investigate the implications of, for example, addressing the server from a train or hotel Wi-Fi network, where there is a 'captive portal' arrangement. So having our own experimental server is enabling us to keep abreast of the DoH standard's development.
Give it a try!
If you fancy having a go with our experimental DoH server, you'll find our terms and conditions, plus advice on setting up at https://doh.sidnlabs.nl/about/. We'd love to hear how you get on!
