SOA Record (Start of Authority Record) — DNS Explained

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Syntax

zone TTL IN SOA primary_NS admin_email ( serial refresh retry expire minimum )

Example

example.com.    3600    IN    SOA    ns1.example.com. admin.example.com. (
    2026041601 ; serial
    7200       ; refresh
    3600       ; retry
    1209600    ; expire
    86400 )    ; minimum TTL

When to use

When: automatically created when a zone is provisioned. Rarely edited manually.

Common mistakes

Common mistakes: serial not bumped after changes — secondary NS misses updates. Admin email uses . instead of @.

Check SOA records for any domain:

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