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Zone transfer (AXFR/IXFR)

Migrate DNS zones to or from Zone transfer (AXFR/IXFR): what's supported, what access you need, and what changes for each destination.

See how a domain's records would land at Zone transfer. Free and read-only.

Access we need

Credentials
Primary server(s) that allow zone transfers to our egress IP, optionally with a TSIG key
Permissions
Read-only: the primary must allow AXFR (and ideally IXFR) to our egress IP, optionally restricted to a TSIG key. Nothing is ever written back.

Runs on your own infrastructure.

We connect to its API over the internet, so the API endpoint must be reachable on a public address over HTTPS. We never connect to private or internal addresses.

What Zone transfer supports

The same data the translation engine uses when it plans a migration.

Create zones through the API
List zones through the API
Turn on DNSSEC through the API
Apex CNAME (flattening)
Apex ALIAS record
Aliases to cloud resources
CDN proxy on records
Routing policies
Minimum TTL
0s

Record types

  • A
  • AAAA
  • CNAME
  • MX
  • TXT
  • NS
  • SRV
  • CAA
  • PTR
  • DS
  • TLSA
  • SSHFP
  • NAPTR
  • SPF
  • URI
  • DNAME
  • OPENPGPKEY
  • SMIMEA
  • DHCID
  • RP
  • HTTPS
  • SVCB

Good to know

  • Read-only source: zone transfer connections can be migrated from, monitored and backed up, but never written to.
  • We reach primaries only over TCP port 53 at public addresses; private, loopback, link-local and metadata addresses are refused.
  • A transfer shows what the server publishes: proxied (CDN) addresses, flattened apex CNAMEs and provider-managed records can't be recovered from it.
  • DNSSEC signatures and keys (RRSIG, NSEC/NSEC3, DNSKEY, CDS/CDNSKEY) are dropped; the destination signs the zone itself.
  • We can't receive NOTIFY messages, so changes are picked up by polling the SOA serial, then IXFR when the server supports it.