What's New at DNSimple — Spring 2024
Anthony Eden
on
Hey everyone! Welcome to the Spring edition of the DNSimple Feature Focus.
We've made a lot of improvements and changes over the last few months. You'll find new Integrated Providers, an API endpoint that details your zone queries, security updates to your S/MIME certificates, improved UX, and an easier way to redeem domains if you forget to renew them on time.
Let's take a look at everything we've released and improved since our last update. Read on for the greatest hits of the last six months, and as always, click any of the links if you want to learn more.
Integrated DNS Provider: Azure DNS
We've added Microsoft Azure as our newest Integrated DNS Provider. This lets you manage DNS zones that are in DNSimple, Microsoft Azure, or both, right from DNSimple's web interface and synchronize zones between the two.
This addition is part of our larger Domain Control Plane, where you can see and manage your domains from other providers via your DNSimple dashboard.
New API endpoint for DNS analytics
You need transparency in your DNS management costs, and we're here to provide it. Our new API endpoint lets you pull detailed information about your domains' query volumes per-day and/or per-zone. If you integrate with our API to manage a large number of zones, this endpoint lets you retrieve usage information. If you manage fewer zones, it provides a detailed analysis of your usage.
If you're working with multiple high-volume zones or receive a very high number of monthly queries, contact sales for Enterprise pricing, and we'll get you set up with what you need.
CAA record to control issuance of S/MIME certs
The CA/Browser Forum voted to adopt the CAA record (Certification Authority Authorization) for S/MIME (Secure/Multipurpose Internet Mail Extension) certificates in addition to SSL/TLS certificates. The new recommendation is to adopt the new CAA features by September 15, 2024. Supporting these features will become mandatory as of March 15, 2025. We decided to adopt the new features early, so we've released issuemail support to anyone using CAA records at DNSimple. Start planning updates to your organizations' CAA configurations ahead of time, and test the changes before they become mandatory.
Your business should implement S/MIME to protect your email reputation, combat phishing attempts by confirming sender identity, and reduce the likelihood of man-in-the-middle attacks injecting viruses and malware into your emails. The addition of issuemail to CAA records ensures only the CAs you use can issue certificates, or that no S/MIME certificates may be issued at all for certain domains.
Improved UX for domain management
These changes address the experience of working with domains and zones across the entirety of the DNSimple app user interface. This includes the dashboard, navigation bar, and listing of domains and zones for easy portfolio management. We've also included support for unicode domain names in the domain names table.
With this update, you'll clearly see the state of each of your domain names, including where they're registered, where the DNS is, and whether there are certificates issued for it.
Domain redemption
Our latest release, domain restore functionality lets you recover domains yourself when they've already been deleted at the registrar, instead of contacting customer support for help. All it takes is a couple clicks.
If you have a domain registered with DNSimple, you can use the domain redemption function. You'll also now see warnings for all domains in the restorable period (also called a redemption period), along with the date they'll be deleted at the registry. But don't ignore your domain expirations and renewals — restoring a domain can cost significantly more. We recommend turning on auto-renew to avoid the issue completely.
That's all for now
Get the latest from DNSimple on the Feature page of our blog, and never miss a new release. And of course, let us know if there are features you'd like to see us add — we always love hearing your ideas.
DNSimple delivers simple, secure domain management for even the most complex domain portfolios. With all the innovative features we've been rolling out, now is the perfect time to sign up. Give us a try free for 30 days, and let us simplify your domain management.
And as always, if you have any questions about your DNS configuration, domain management, or the new features, get in touch — we're here to help.
Anthony Eden
I break things so Simone continues to have plenty to do. I occasionally have useful ideas, like building a domain and DNS provider that doesn't suck.
We think domain management should be easy.
That's why we continue building DNSimple.
