Institutions with off-site hosts and services that require names
within cam.ac.uk can ask us ip-register@uis.cam.ac.uk to set up
the necessary DNS records.
This page explains the process for setting up individual off-site services. There is a different process for setting up delegated DNS for cloud providers when services are being deployed off site en masse.
Administrative requirements
The requesting institution will provide a description of the purpose for which the name is being allocated, and must notify us of any change of purpose.
If the name is not associated with an existing management zone in the IP Register database, the institution must nominate a responsible person or persons, to act as administrative and technical contacts in case there are problems; the administrative contact must be a member of the institution requesting the external reference.
The acceptable use policies for the CUDN and JANET apply to the external resource.
Technical requirements
Where possible, we prefer external references to be CNAME records, i.e. to hostnames, though we can set up A/AAAA address records when an external hostname is not available.
Please let us know if you would like us to make the DNS change at a particular time. This must be during normal office hours.
IP addresses of external hosts should have a valid reverse lookup to a canonical name, which is not the name in cam.ac.uk. This is because some systems use reverse DNS checks to determine if a device is on the CUDN.
Web servers on the referenced external host must serve only Cambridge-related material when identified by the cam.ac.uk name.
Requirements for mail services
There are additional requirements for off-site mail service providers. See the technical notes about DNS records for mail and the rules for administering a mail domain.