DNS API

Do you have a domain name that needs to point to an IP address that changes (e.g. to your home PC)? Then you may want to use our DNS API.

You can use the DNS API to set a domain's IP address.

You can also use the DNS API to automate setting up and changing Mail Server (MX), Text (TXT) records, etc.  As well as deleting records.

Some examples of using the API:

DNS API Reference

Parameter Name Parameter Alias Description
action One of SET (the default), QUERY or DELETE.  If you set a hostname that does not already exist in a zone, the hostname will be added to that zone.  If you delete a record that does not exist the request will be ignored.
host hostname The dns record you are updating.  This field is required.  You must have a zone setup on our name servers with this host in it.  e.g. if you have an example.com zone setup you could have host=example.com or host=www.example.com.  This API will not create zones on the fly.  The zone must not be a 'slave' zone on our servers (in which case it is read-only).  You can provide one or more (comma separated) host values.  e.g. if you wanted to set multiple domain names to a single IP addresss. Use **.example.com to match all names ending in example.com.  This can be useful for getting a list of all records in a zone.
type DNS record type.  e.g. A, MX, or TXT.  Defaults to A.
value myip, dnsto Set this value on the record.  If the record is an IP Address (A) record then the value would need to be an IP address.  If the record were a Mail Server (MX) record then it would need to be a host name.  For an IP Address (A) record this will default to the IP address of the API client (e.g. your home PC, e.g. right now that is 18.97.9.175).  To set multiple values for a single hostname provide a comma separated list of values.  e.g. if you wanted to set multiple IPs for a IP Address (A) record.  The multiple values feature only works with some (e.g. PTR, A, MX, CNAME) record types. The IP Address (A) record cannot default to the IP address of the API client if that client is making a request over IPv6. In that case you would need to specify the IP Address value or force the request over IPv4. e.g. by making the request to ipv4.rimuhosting.com .
prio The priority.  A number.  Used on MX records.  If not specified the API will set it to 0.  If more than one host name is specified for the action and the priority is not specified then the priority is incremented for each host.
ttl The TTL (time to live) on the record.  Optional (and typically best not provided).  A number.  Used to hint at how long in seconds recursive name servers should cache the record details.  3600 or one hour is a common default.
api_key Your DNS API key.  Keep this secret (like you would a password).  This API key is unique to your user account.  Your API key can be passed in as an api_key=blah parameter. Or it can be passed in as an 'Authorization' header.  The format for the Authorization header is like "Authorization: redrata api_key=ec7....82e137431".  To change your API key (e.g. if someone who should not know it discovers it) use our API keys page.  You would need to be logged in to see your API key.

If you wish to perform more than one action add [number] to each parameter in that action set.  The actions will be performed in numerical order.

You can use either the https URL or a plain http URL.  If your dynamic DNS client supports it, we recommend the https URL since then the URL is encrypted.

You can use GET (with the parameters in the URL) or POST (with the parameters as form URL encoded values).

If the update is successful you will get page a page with one line of text that starts "OK:".  If the update fails you will get back a page with one line of text that starts "ERROR:".

API clients

Software supporting the DNS API: