How to Manage DNS Records in DirectAdmin

In DirectAdmin, you edit a domain’s DNS records at user level under Account Manager > DNS Management. Use this guide to add or change a record without breaking the domain’s website or email, and to check that the change has reached the internet.

Saving a record in DirectAdmin only changes public DNS when the domain’s nameservers publish that DirectAdmin zone. If the domain is hosted with Noiz, its zone is served from ns1.noiz.co.za and ns2.noiz.co.za, and the panel’s records are synchronised to those nameservers. Read yourdomain.com throughout as your own domain name.

Last reviewed: 13 October 2026, against the current DirectAdmin release and its Evolution interface. This guide is kept current against DirectAdmin. It complements, and does not replace, the official DirectAdmin documentation linked below.

Official Documentation Reference

Prerequisites

Your DirectAdmin login. See How to Log In to DirectAdmin.
The exact records supplied by the service you are connecting: name, type, value and, for MX, priority.
A copy of the existing records you are about to change (names, types, values, priorities and TTLs), so you can put them back.

Do not use Reset Defaults to repair one record. It rebuilds the whole zone and can remove unrelated custom records.

Check Where the Domain’s DNS Is Hosted

Look up the domain’s nameservers at its registrar, or query them:

dig NS yourdomain.com +short

On Windows, nslookup -type=NS yourdomain.com gives the same answer. The result can be cached, so if it disagrees with the registrar, trust the registrar.

The nameservers are the ones your DirectAdmin server publishes its zones to (for a domain hosted with Noiz, ns1.noiz.co.za and ns2.noiz.co.za): the zone you edit in DirectAdmin is the one the internet sees. Carry on below. If you are not sure which nameservers your server uses, ask your server administrator or hosting provider.
The nameservers belong to another service, such as a third-party DNS provider: make public record changes at that service instead. This also applies to records DirectAdmin creates for you, for example when you add a subdomain or switch on mail authentication.

Changing the NS records inside the zone does not change the registrar’s delegation. Nameservers are changed at the registrar; see How to Point Your Domain to Noiz Hosting.

Add or Edit a Record

Log in to DirectAdmin.
In the Account Manager section, click DNS Management. If you cannot see it, type DNS Management into the panel’s search box. If it does not appear at all, DNS control is not enabled on your account; ask your server administrator or hosting provider.
If your account holds more than one domain, check that the correct domain is selected.
To change a record, use that record’s edit option. To create one, use the option to add a record. Enter the values the service supplied.
Save, then find the record in the list and check that its name and value are exactly what you intended.

For name fields, a short name such as shop means shop.yourdomain.com.. A complete hostname must end with a full stop, such as mail.example.net., otherwise DirectAdmin appends your domain to it. This rule applies to names, not to IP addresses or TXT contents.

Type	What to enter	Check before saving
A	A name and the supplied IPv4 address	DNS does not create or move the website.
AAAA	A name and the supplied IPv6 address	The same site must work over IPv6; an old AAAA can send visitors elsewhere despite a correct A record.
CNAME	An alias and its target hostname	Do not use a normal CNAME at the zone root or alongside A, AAAA, MX or TXT records at the same name.
MX	The receiving mail hostname and its priority	Use the mail service’s exact entries; lower priority numbers are preferred.
TXT	The supplied name and complete text	Preserve the value and follow the form’s quoting format. Do not add a trailing full stop to the text.

The DNS specification explains the CNAME restriction. Do not remove an existing record merely to make room for an alias without checking what uses it.

For SPF, edit the existing TXT policy beginning v=spf1 to add a sender. More than one SPF policy at the same name causes an SPF error, although other TXT records can sit alongside it. Long TXT values may appear as quoted chunks within one record; do not turn them into separate records. See the SPF record rules, and for SPF, DKIM and DMARC together, How to Protect Your Domain from Spoofing and Improve Email Deliverability.

If You Are Moving Email Elsewhere

Prepare the destination mailboxes before changing delivery.
Publish the new service’s complete set of MX records in the DNS that the internet sees, replacing the old MX entries according to the migration plan.
If the mailboxes will no longer be on this server, go to E-mail Manager > MX Records, select the domain, and clear Local Mail Server. This setting tells the server whether to deliver the domain’s mail locally, and it matters even when DNS is hosted elsewhere. If an external service only filters mail and then returns it to mailboxes on this server, leave local delivery on.
Keep the old mail service available during the transition. Send test messages from an external account and, where the website sends mail, from the website.

Changing MX records does not move stored messages or update mail apps.

Verify the Result and Allow for Caching

TTL (time to live) is how long, in seconds, other DNS servers may cache a record. It is not a guaranteed completion time. Depending on how the server is set up, DirectAdmin shows either a TTL on each record or one TTL for the whole zone at the bottom of DNS Management. For a planned change, lower the TTL in advance and wait for the previous TTL to pass before switching the value; if you cannot edit the TTL, ask your server administrator or hosting provider to lower it. Restore the normal TTL once the change is stable. Lowering it afterwards does not shorten copies already cached. See the DNS caching rules.

For an A record at shop.yourdomain.com, compare an authoritative answer with your normal resolver:

dig @ns1.example.net shop.yourdomain.com A +norecurse
dig shop.yourdomain.com A

Replace ns1.example.net with each of the domain’s nameservers in turn, and change the name and record type to match your edit. Look for the intended answer and the aa (authoritative answer) flag in the nameservers’ replies. If those nameservers disagree with each other, the zone has not been published consistently and waiting will not fix it. A name that did not exist before can also take time to appear, because the earlier “no such name” answer is cached too.

Troubleshooting

The panel saved the record, but public DNS differs: check that the domain uses the nameservers whose zone you edited, then query each of them as shown above.
Only some visitors fail: compare the A and AAAA answers for both the bare domain and www, then test the website. Caching is one possible cause, not the only one.
The zone returns SERVFAIL (the DNS server could not answer) or stops answering: stop making edits and contact your server administrator or hosting provider. A record syntax error, a delegation fault or a DNSSEC (signed DNS) problem needs diagnosis; waiting is not a repair.
An SSL certificate stops renewing after a DNS change: see How to Secure a Website with a Free SSL Certificate in DirectAdmin.
Your change broke a service: restore only the affected records, and the Local Mail Server setting if you changed it, from your saved copy. Repeat the DNS and service checks; cached answers can delay the recovery too.

Need a Hand?

Noiz supports customers who run their own DirectAdmin servers. If a change does not take effect and you need a hand, contact Noiz support with the domain, the record name and type, the value you intended, the time of the change and any DNS error or query output. Never send passwords or API tokens.

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