DNS (Domain Name System) is how the internet knows where to find your website. When someone types your school's domain into a browser, DNS looks up the records that tell the browser which servers to contact.
📧 DNS-specific questions? Email Edlio's DNS team directly at [email protected] for help with nameservers, DNS records, email authentication (SPF/DKIM/DMARC/MX), domain transfers, or SSL setup. For general support, you can also open a ticket through Eddy in your admin dashboard.
For Edlio sites, DNS handles two main things:
Routing visitors to your site — A records (for the bare domain like `yourschool.org`) and a CNAME (for `www.yourschool.org`) point to Edlio's hosting servers.
Email authentication — TXT records (SPF, DKIM, DMARC) and MX records control how email is sent from and received at your domain. See Email authentication records for details.
Who manages your DNS
Every Edlio customer is on one of two paths. Which path you're on determines who makes DNS changes for your domain.
To check which path you're on, run a WHOIS lookup on your domain at ICANN Lookup (or any WHOIS tool) and look at the Name Servers field.
Edlio manages your DNS
Nameservers: `ns1.edlio.com` and `ns2.edlio.com`.
Edlio's nameservers are authoritative for your domain, which means Edlio Support makes DNS changes on your behalf. To add or change a record, submit a ticket via Eddy (Edlio's AI support assistant in your admin dashboard) with the record details you need. There is no DNS admin screen in the Edlio CMS — Support handles all changes server-side.
For setup details, see Using Edlio nameservers.
You manage your DNS
Nameservers: anything other than Edlio's — typically your registrar's (GoDaddy, Namecheap), your IT team's, or a third party like Cloudflare or AWS Route 53.
You (or your IT team) make all DNS changes yourself in your DNS provider's control panel. Edlio doesn't need to be looped in for most changes — including email authentication records. The exception is the specific A and CNAME records that point your site to Edlio's servers: those values are documented in Using your own nameservers.
What to expect after a DNS change
DNS changes don't take effect instantly. DNS propagation is the time it takes for an update to be picked up by servers and devices across the internet. Most changes are visible within a few hours, but full global propagation can take up to 48 hours. Three factors affect the timing:
Time-to-Live (TTL) settings — controls how often resolvers refresh cached records. Shorter TTLs propagate faster.
Domain registrars — some push changes out faster than others.
Internet Service Providers (ISPs) — some cache aggressively and lag the rest of the internet by hours.
If a change hasn't taken effect after 48 hours, something's off. For Edlio-managed DNS, submit a follow-up ticket via Eddy. For self-managed DNS, check that the record was saved correctly in your provider's control panel.
SSL certificates
Edlio provides SSL certificates for all hosted sites. The first certificate is generated overnight, typically within the first 24-48 hours after the site launches. You don't need to add or manage anything DNS-side for the certificate itself — it's tied to the records that point your domain at Edlio.
If you see a CloudFlare 1001 error shortly after launching your domain, that's expected for a short window while certificate verification completes. If it persists for more than an hour, submit a ticket via Eddy.
Common DNS tasks
Set up email authentication (SPF, DKIM, DMARC, MX — for school email or third-party senders like Mailchimp, finalsite, M365) → Email authentication records.
Verify domain ownership with another service (Google Workspace, Microsoft 365, Zoom) — see the TXT record Q&A in DNS FAQs.
Add a subdomain (e.g. `apps.yourschool.org`) — see the subdomain Q&A in DNS FAQs.
Find your current DNS records — see DNS FAQs.
Move away from Edlio (export records, transfer domain) — Moving away from Edlio.
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