Importing a BIND Zone File Into OneDollarDNS

Connecting a supported provider (Cloudflare, DigitalOcean, GoDaddy, Namecheap, Porkbun) is the fastest way to import a domain's hosts, and it keeps re-syncing automatically. Not every DNS provider is on that list. For everything else, a zone file upload gets you to the same starting point: every hostname in the file becomes a monitored host, in one step, without typing each one in by hand.

What a zone file actually is

A BIND zone file is a plain-text format for describing every record in a DNS zone, and it's the closest thing DNS has to a universal export format. Almost every DNS provider, whether or not they offer an API, can produce one, because it's the same format DNS software itself has used for decades. A typical export looks like this:

$ORIGIN example.com.
$TTL 3600
@       IN  SOA   ns1.example.com. admin.example.com. (2026071801 7200 3600 1209600 300)
@       IN  NS    ns1.example.com.
@       IN  NS    ns2.example.com.
@       IN  A     203.0.113.42
www     IN  A     203.0.113.42
mail    IN  MX 10 mail.example.com.
@       IN  TXT   "v=spf1 include:_spf.example.com ~all"

Every provider's export looks slightly different in formatting, but the structure is the same: one line per record, with a hostname, record type, and value.

Where to get the export

Most DNS providers offer a zone export somewhere in their DNS management screen, usually labeled "Export zone file," "Download BIND file," or similar. If a provider doesn't offer it directly, some also expose it through an API endpoint even without a full read/write API integration. Check your provider's documentation for the specific menu location, since this varies by provider and changes over time.

What happens on import

Uploading a zone file works the same way a provider connection does for the purpose of building your host list:

1. The file is parsed and every unique hostname becomes a monitored host, the same as importing from a connected provider.
2. Zone plumbing is skipped. The SOA record describes the zone itself rather than a specific host, so it's not turned into a monitored host. Wildcard entries are skipped for the same reason: there's no single concrete hostname to monitor. NS records aren't filtered out the same way, but in practice they usually share an owner name (like the apex, @) that's already being monitored because of another record there.
3. Records are still verified against live DNS, not the file. The import establishes which hostnames to watch. What we actually check going forward is what your authoritative nameservers currently answer, the same as every other monitored host. If the zone file is out of date by the time you upload it, the current live records are still what shows up, and what future changes are measured against.

The one thing a zone file import can't do that a provider connection can

A provider connection re-syncs daily, picking up new hostnames automatically as they're added at the provider. A zone file is a snapshot: accurate the moment you exported it, and static after that. If you add a new subdomain at your DNS provider next month, it won't appear in OneDollarDNS until you add it manually or upload a fresh export.

This isn't a limitation specific to us. It's the nature of a file versus a live connection. If your provider is one we support directly, connecting it instead of uploading a file gets you the same initial import plus the ongoing sync. See Importing Hosts From Your DNS Provider for the list of supported providers and what a connection does differently.

Re-importing after changes

If you've made a batch of changes at your provider and want OneDollarDNS's host list to reflect them, export a fresh zone file and upload it again. New hostnames in the updated file get added. Existing monitored hosts are left as they are; a zone file import, like a provider connection, never removes a host on its own. If you've decommissioned a subdomain and want it to stop being monitored, remove it manually rather than relying on the next import to notice it's gone.

A note on accuracy

A zone file is only as current as the moment it was exported. If your provider's live records have changed since you generated the file, the import will still create hosts for whatever the file lists, but the actual record values you see afterward will reflect the current live DNS, not what was in the file. This is deliberate: the point of an import is to build the host list quickly, not to treat the file as a source of truth for record content going forward.