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DNS Zones

A DNS Zone contains all the DNS records associated with a domain, such as cycle.io.

On Cycle, a domain can be configured as either Hosted or Non-Hosted.

Hosted Zones vs Non-Hosted Zones

Cycle supports two different kinds of DNS zones:

Hosted Zone

Domains that will be fully managed by Cycle. These domains must have their authoritative nameservers configured to Cycle's nameservers. Additionally, these domains must be verified to ensure proper ownership.

Learn how to create a hosted zone on Cycle

Non-Hosted Zone

These domains do not require verification and maintain their authoritative nameservers, but require manual A/AAAA records to be utilized on Cycle. Non-hosted zones require A/AAAA records at the host to point to your Cycle load balancer IPs, and LINKED records pointed to the container or deployments the domain should resolve.

Learn how to create a non-hosted zone on Cycle

Which DNS Zone Type Should I Use?

If possible, all zones on Cycle should set up as hosted zones. This provides the greatest experience and allows the platform to fully manage features such as automatic TLS generation/renewal.

In some cases, it may not be possible to migrate an entire domain to Cycle, or it may need to be proxied through a service such as CloudFlare. In this case, a non-hosted zone will work, but it will require more manual effort, and it will miss out on a lot of the automation provided by Cycle.

Managing Sub-Domains on Cycle

By adding an NS record, Cycle can manage a sub-domain as a hosted zone.

  1. Create up to four NS record on the provider, pointed to Cycle's nameservers.

    • ns1.cycle.io
    • ns2.cycle.io
    • ns3.cycle.io
    • ns4.cycle.io

This ensures that when this sub-domain is looked up, the request is forwarded to Cycle's nameservers.

  1. Create a TXT record

Next, create a TXT record on the provider to ensure Cycle can verify ownership of the domain. The value will be set to the hub ID for the hub that this DNS zone will be associated with.

Name the record cycle-verify, and set the hub ID as the value of the TXT record.

  1. Create and Verify the Zone