Adding your first zone

"That zone is not available"

A domain name can only be on one KumoDNS account at a time. If you see this when adding a zone, the name is already in the system.

If it is on your account, the message says so — check your zone list, it is already there.

If it is not, the message will not tell you whose it is, and that is on purpose: we do not disclose who hosts a domain to anyone but the account holding it. If you own the domain and believe it was added by someone else, contact support and we will check ownership properly.

Adding it to your registrar's nameservers does not reserve the name here — the zone has to exist on your account first.

A zone is one domain hosted here. Adding one is the first thing you do in the portal, and it should happen before you change anything at your registrar.

Create the zone

From Zones, add the domain name — example.com, without www and without a scheme. The zone is created with an SOA record and the NS records pointing at our nameservers.

Your plan sets how many zones you may host. When you reach the limit, adding another is refused rather than silently charged for; see Changing plan.

Add the records that matter before you delegate

This is the step people skip. The moment you change nameservers at your registrar, we become the answer for that domain — so anything not yet in the zone stops resolving.

Before delegating, make sure you have:

• the A or AAAA record for the apex (@) and for www, if you use it;
• your MX records, or email stops arriving;
• any TXT records — SPF, DKIM, domain verification for services that check it;
• anything else your current provider is answering.

The fastest way to get all of that at once is to export a BIND zone file from your current provider and import it. It brings the whole zone in one step.

Check it before you switch

You can query our nameservers for the zone before your domain is delegated to them, which is the only way to be sure the answers are right in advance:

dig @ns01.kumodns.com example.com A
dig @ns01.kumodns.com example.com MX

If those return what you expect, you are ready to point your registrar.

Zone notes

Each zone can carry a short note — what it is for, who asked for it, which project it belongs to. It is visible only inside your account and is there because a list of forty domains stops being self-explanatory quickly.

Last reviewed 2026-08-30.