Need help?

As friendly Canadians, the support team at CIRA loves to help. Here you can find information on commonly asked questions regarding your domain name or other CIRA products and services.

Well hello there. How can we help you?

.CA domains

Chances are, you’ve arrived at this page because you know that CIRA operates the .CA domain. It might be helpful to know that many domain-related requests are actually resolved through your Registrar, not the Registry (CIRA). For requests including transferring a domain or updating the contact information associated with your domain, please contact your Registrar.

Frequently asked questions about .CA domains

Who is my Registrar?
How do I change my domain information?
How do I transfer my domain name to a new Registrar?

D-Zone Anycast DNS

Frequently asked questions about D-Zone Anycast DNS

How do I run a health check?
How do I check serial numbers?
How do I configure to send notifies and allow zone transfers?
How do I modify alert and notification settings in the D-Zone portal?

D-Zone DNS Firewall

In order to troubleshoot Firewall issues we normally gather the following information:

Verify Outbound IPs:

In order to ensure all traffic is sent through DNS Firewall and is resolving properly, all outgoing IP addresses need to be entered into our Firewall configuration for each account.

  1. Contact your Network Administrator to verify all IP address information for all egress points for web traffic from your network.
  2. Our proxy server is not an open resolver, it will only resolve queries for clients using known IP addresses. Please browse to using a computer that is experiencing issues resolving webpages and provide us the IP address displayed or a screen capture of the page.
  3. Contact your Network Administrator to perform a dig for the URL in question.

Registrar support

If you are .CA Registrar that registers domain names on behalf of CIRA, please log into the Registrar Portal and complete the Contact Us form.

General inquiries / Other

Please contact us.

Frequently asked questions

.CA domains

Who is my Registrar?

If you registered a .CA domain name, you either registered with a .CA Registrar or reseller*. In order to determine which Registrar a specific domain name was registered with, please do the following:

  1. Go to WHOIS.
  2. Enter the domain name you need information about.
  3. Find out who the Registrar is under the Registrar information section.

View contact information for .CA Registrars if you wish to get in contact with them.

* If you cannot find the name of the company you purchased the domain name from, you may have registered the domain with a reseller - a business that is not accredited directly with CIRA. They work through and adhere to the same standards as our valued partners.

How do I change my domain information?

CIRA does not make any changes to domain information. Please contact your Registrar for all domain changes, including updating contact information.

Once you’ve been in touch with your Registrar, the changes you make to the information will be forwarded to us (the Registry) automatically, and our records will be updated accordingly.

If you aren't sure of who your Registrar is, please refer to the "Who is my Registrar?" instructions.

How do I transfer my domain name to a new Registrar?

  1. Contact your current Registrar for two things:
    i) Request the authorization code (some Registrars may call it an EPP code) for your domain name. Once you make this request, your Registrar must provide you the code within five days. If you do not receive the code within five days, please let us know.
    ii) Check that your domain name is not locked. Locks prevent changes from being made to your domain name.
  2. Contact your new Registrar to request a transfer.

To avoid any issues, we recommend you get in touch with your new Registrar of choice as soon as possible and have that handy dandy authorization code ready.

Please note you will not be able to transfer the domain again for another 60 days.

D-Zone Anycast DNS

How do I run a health check?

Run a health check to confirm that the Zone is being transferred, that there are no network interruptions (ex. firewalls blocking traffic) and the serial number is greater on the primary (your zone), then the secondary (backup).

  1. Login to D-Zone Portal -
  2. Find the Zone you are having a problem with, or select all Zones in a problem state.
  3. Use the stethoscope icon under Zone Status, next to the colored icon, to run the health check.
  4. Select “Run All” in the troubleshooting panel.
  5. Results will appear in the “Test Report” section.
  6. If all activity is Green, congratulations, all is well!
  7. If any activity is Red, please proceed to the How do I check serial numbers, and what are the IP’s to configure alerts and the monitoring server?

How do I check serial numbers?

Serial numbers determine whether or not a Zone is updated. For a Zone to transfer, the serial number on the originating side needs to be incremented higher than what the Zone already has. (Ex. 1: Originating Zone Serial Number: 72; D-Zone Serial Number: 72. No transfer will occur. Originating Zone Serial Number: 85; D-Zone Serial Number: 72. A transfer will occur.) The transfer will update the D-Zone Serial number to the originating one.

  1. Select the view button in the details column.
  2. Select the Retrieve button next to Transfer History button.
  3. Any easy way to check if any Serial Numbers have been updated is to put “transferred serial” in the Text: box.

How do I configure to send notifies and allow zone transfers?

D-Zone has four hidden masters that customers need to configure to send notifies and allow zone transfers. Please ensure your DNS settings are updated to use all four hidden masters.

Hidden master number IPv4 Address IPv6 Address
D-Zone Hidden Master 1 2620:10a:80d1:1053::135
D-Zone Hidden Master 2 2620:10a:80d4:1053::135
D-Zone Hidden Master 3 2620:10a:80d1:1053::235
D-Zone Hidden Master 4 2620:10a:80d4:1053::235

The Monitoring Server needs to be set to “Allow query” so D-Zone can properly report the Zone Status.

D-Zone Monitoring Server: (IPv4)
2620:10a:80d4:1090::100 (IPv6)

When testing D-Zone the first check is to click the “Health Check” stethoscope.

SOA test failure: Ensure allow query is set for the monitoring server.

Connectivity test failure: Ensure firewall access has been granted for the listed hidden masters.

Zone transfer failure: Please confirm the serial number is higher than the current one in D-Zone.


In order to maintain your Zone Transfers, and to be alerted if there are problems, D-Zone Support recommends turning on the Alert setting in your D-Zone Profile.

  1. Log into the D-Zone Portal.
  2. Select the Profile Tab (Please contact Support if you don’t see the Profile Tab)
  3. Select the Alert Settings Tab.
  4. Set the “Email for Zone Expire” to the email you’d like to receive the alerts at.
  5. Set the Alert Interval for how frequently you’d like to be notified if there is a problem.
  6. Set the Alert Users to determine list of users that will receive alerts when new zone traffic events occur.

This will help in being able to self-manage your Zone Transfers and ensure they are available.