In order to have your own domain be visible to the world, data for it must be made availible in well known locations. The process of registering domains in the .com, .net, and .org hierarchies is handled by the InterNIC. Their own registration services pages branch out from http://rs.internic.net/rs-internic.html. The forms presented here are taken from their server and distilled slightly to expedite your registration. In case of questions about the forms, please see the InterNIC site for full instructions.

General Instructions for Using InterNIC Forms

The InterNIC processes all data by email. Therefore, you will need to mail in the forms presented below to hostmaster@internic.net yourself. On a Windows machine, the process will go something like this:

1. Follow a link below to the needed form.
2. Use Edit/Select All in your browser to highlight the entire form, and then use Edit/Copy to copy it to the clipboard.
3. Start Notepad. (Windows 95 users: go to the Start menu, go to Programs, go to Accesories, and select Notepad. Windows 3 users: go to the Program Manager, open the Acessories group, and select Notepad.)
4. In Notepad, use Edit/Paste to paste in the form so you can edit it.
5. Edit the form. (See general instructions below and specific instructions farther below.)
6. Use Edit/Select All and Edit/Copy in Notepad to copy your completed form to the clipboard.
7. Start your preferred mail program. Begin writing a message to hostmaster@internic.net. In most cases you should probably send a carbon copy to hostmaster@trafficblaster.com for our records.
8. In your mail program, use Edit/Paste to paste the form into the body of the message. (Don't send it as any sort of attachment. It should be the message itself. If your mail program offers a choice between `rich' or `formatted' mail and `plain' text mail, you must use the plain text mode.)
9. Send the mail and await a response. You should usually get at least a receipt notice within a few hours. If you get nothing in 24 hours, resending exactly the same form won't hurt. (In other words, go back to Notepad and save a copy.) When you do get your receipt, save it until you get confirmation that the form has been processed. The receipt contains a tracking number you will need in case you need to inquire on the status of your request.

InterNIC forms are divided into sections, and each section is divided into lines. Each line has a description of the data needed, followed by a colon. Don't modify anything already on the form, but simply append your data to the appropriate line after the colon. Don't break lines; if the data required is long just keep typing on one long line. In some cases, such as for street addresses which really do need more then one line, you may duplicate the entire line before starting to fill it in, such as turning this:

1d. Organization Name.......: 
1e. Street Address..........: 
1f. City....................:

into this:

1d. Organization Name.......: 
1e. Street Address..........: 
1e. Street Address..........: 
1f. City....................:

Many of the items asked for will be self-explanatory, and the rest should be covered in specific instructions below. If in doubt, get an original copy of the form from the InterNIC's FTP site which will come with full instructions. The country code for the United States of America is `US'. Fill it in where appropriate.

New Domains

Choosing a domain name

Until we have time to write down guidelines for this, either see the InterNIC's site, particularly the New Domain Name Registration FAQ, or write to us at sales@trafficblaster.com.

Contact Registration

If you have never done business with the InterNIC before, you first need to register with the InterNIC. They will assign you a handle: a short identifier consisting of your initials and a number, which will identify you uniquely in their databases. Registering is basically as simple as filling in your personal data in a form and mailing it in. Grab contact-template.txt and fill in lines 1c-1l. Lines 0a-0c, 1a, and 1b are already filled in correctly for a new registration. You don't need or want to put anything in for sections 2 or 3. Then send it in to hostmaster@internic.net and wait to be assigned your handle.

Domain Registration

A new domain needs to be registered in the same servers that handle all domains under that Top-Level Domain. When you sign up with Empty Sky Consulting, we put appropriate data for your domain in our name servers, but the rest of the world doesn't know to look to us for information until the InterNIC sets you up. This is why you need to fill in this form, and this is why you need to pay the InterNIC. (Running the name servers that run much of the world doesn't just happen.) Grab domain-template.txt and fill in the following:

1. Sections 0, 5, 7 and 8 are filled in correctly for creating a new domain to be hosted with Empty Sky Consulting.
2. Line 1: write something simple, like 'to support an Internet presence for My Company, Inc.'
3. Line 2: write in your chosen domain.
4. Section 3: should be obvious enough. The InterNIC considers every entity that needs a second-level domain an organization, which should present no problems in almost any case. If you are registering as an individual, you can have your name be the organization.
5. Line 4a: put your handle here. You don't need to fill in anything else in section 4 because you did it when you applied for your handle.
6. Line 6a: put your handle here, unless someone else in your organization will be paying the bill for this domain, in which case put their handle here.

Then send it in. It can currently take anywhere from a couple hours to a few days for the InterNIC to add your domain to their database, and a day after that for it to become availible to the world. If after a week or so you have gotten nothing back beyond the initial receipt (the one that says nothing but that the email went through) re-submit. They will inform you when things happen. You will be invoiced anywhere from one minute to one week after the domain is created, with payment due within thirty days.

Existing domain

There's even less typing to do to move an existing domain here. Get domain-template-mod.txt and fill in line 2 with your domain name. Then mail it. Note that you need to send it from the address already registered with the InterNIC as the administrative contact.

Don't have access to the email account listed as the administrative contact?

The InterNIC has a page discussing this situation.

More?

Someday we may write out instructions for modifying your registered data and other things if the demand is there. Until then you should know that the InterNIC's site has completed information.

People registering domains other than .com, .net, or .org domains should read the current name server data from the InterNIC registration form and put it where it needs to go.

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