ENS enables millions of traditional domain owners to crypto-enable their domains for free. Making it possible to use, for example, your .com .net or .org DNS name with ENS.
There are two ways to supercharge your DNS name with ENS functionality: Onchain and Offchain. Both methods support DNS names and integrate with DNSSEC (security layer for DNS).
ENS DAO Constitution
Article 4 – ENS integrates with the global namespace
In order to facilitate making the most widely usable naming system, ENS aims to integrate with the legacy DNS naming system to the greatest extent possible without sacrificing decentralization of ENS. ENS governance will not enact changes that compromise ENS’s ability to do this.
Onchain DNS Names in ENS
The onchain method requires that the user set a text record and prove ownership of that name by submitting proofs of those text records to Ethereum. Proving ownership and claiming names can cost of lot in gas/network fees.
Offchain Gasless DNSSEC in ENS
Offchain Gasless DNSSEC is as simple as updating a DNS text record and it works immediately at no cost.
To address high gas costs, Gasless DNSSEC adopts innovations of ERC-3668 CCIP Read and applies them to accessing names that are not onchain. By using CCIP Read to fetch and verify DNS records at the time of resolution, there's no need to submit proof of ownership onchain.
What that means is a DNS owner just needs to set the text record and their DNS records will just automatically work.
No need to send any transactions.
No need to pay any gas.
Your ens name will just start working... instantly.
Instructions
You can only claim existing DNS domain names that you own
1. Enable DNSSEC on any eligible domain
Not all registrars or hosting providers support DNSSEC, and some only support it as an additional paid service.
Supported DNSSEC key types
In order for your registrars or hosting providers DNSSEC to work with ENS it must use either RSA/SHA-256 or ECDSA keys.
If they don’t, you’ll need to migrate to a DNS provider that does.
Hosting providers with DNSSEC support
Hosting provider | Key support | Links |
easyDNS | RSA/SHA-256 & ECDSA | |
Google Cloud DNS | RSA/SHA-256 & ECDSA | |
Namecheap | RSA/SHA-256 & ECDSA | |
Hostinger | RSA/SHA-256 & ECDSA |
|
Hostgator | RSA/SHA-256 & ECDSA |
|
Bluehost | RSA/SHA-256 & ECDSA |
|
WordPress does not offer DNSSEC support
If you're using them to host your DNS you will need to migrate to another service for your DNS hosting. This does not mean you will have to stop using Wordpress.
2. Set the following DNS record
| Type | Name | Value (this format might change) |
Format | TXT | @ | ENS1 dnsname.ens.eth <eth-address> |
Example | TXT | @ | ENS1 dnsname.ens.eth 0xFe89cc7aBB2C4183683ab71653C4cdc9B02D44b7 |
Note for developers or advanced users: You can use the format ENS1 <resolver-address> with any ENS resolver for full flexibility.
dnsname.ens.eth is just one example we created that can read an ETH address from the same TXT record for simplicity. Learn more about onchain and offchain resolvers.
DNS Subnames
You can gaslessly resolve DNS subdomains too (of any level, 3LD, 4LD, etc) just by adding the same TXT record for that subdomain.
For
vault.myname.com, instead of name = "@", it would be "vault"For
sub.vault.myname.com, the TXT record name = "sub.vault"
3. Done
Now anybody would be able to type yourname.com into web3 applications that support ENS, and it would resolve to the provided Ethereum address. Try it here.