3ROX can process your application for a domain name under the top-level domain .US, the country code for the United States.  We can also take care of modifying or removing a .US domain that you already own.

Official information from the US Domain Name Registration Service is available.  

Please contact us at domreg@psc.edu with any questions.

More information:

• Applying for a domain name
  • Processing time and notifications
  • Domain suspensions and revocations
  • Exceptions
  • General domain information
• Delegation vs. DNS service
• Domains delegated by the PSC under PA.US

Applying for a domain name

This information also applies to modifying or deleting an existing domain name.

Complete and submit  the Domain Registration Template to apply for a new domain name, or modify or delete an existing one.

Please note that the domain name is "owned" by the organizations represented by the domain name, not the organization supplying the DNS nor the person(s) applying for the domain name.

The following information is required for a domain name application:

CONTACTS:  You must supply valid email addresses and telephone numbers for both adminstrative and technical contacts. Administrative contacts must be personnel actually located at the organization represented by the domain name.

NAMESERVERS: To prevent network problems from causing a domain to be unreachable, each domain is required to have two physically distinct and geographically separated domain name servers. Not supplying two such names and addresses can delay or prevent your application from being processed.

Processing time and notifications

We process applications twice weekly; however, in some cases it can take a week or more. Errors in a template can sometimes go unnoticed, as they are processed by programs and not manually entered. We do not correct or otherwise change templates, but will return them for correction to the party who submitted them.

After processing, notification will be sent to the submitter, and if contact information has changed, to the current listed contacts. If the authenticity of the change is questioned, the current contacts will be notified before the application is processed. Therefore it is necessary to maintain up-to-date contact information. Submissions must be made from a valid account that can receive email. If notifications are undeliverable to the requester, the changes can be revoked without prior notice.

Domain suspensions and revocations

At any time when a domain becomes problematic and contact information is invalid, out-of-date, or non-existent, a domain can be suspended (placed "on-hold"). A domain becomes problematic when the name servers no longer exist, no longer serve the domain in question, or when other DNS-based problems arise that can increase the load on our servers which are responsible for delegating. When these types of problems arise, technical contacts are notified via email. If the problems are not corrected, we will notify the administrative contacts and managers of the servers listed, and take other possible routes to resolution. If the problem is still not resolved, the domain will be suspended. In general, we will not reassign the domain. Information will still exist in the Rwhois database, but we will no longer delegate the domain. This will make the domain appear non-existent via any and all DNS queries. In most cases, the domain will have already become unreachable at this point.

We reserve the right to revoke a domain name if any policies are broken. Applying for a second domain name in the cases where only one is allowed can cause the previous domain name to be revoked or the refusal of a new one to be granted. In most cases, we will warn prior to revocation. It is very important that you are aware of these policies and follow them, to prevent confusion and loss of connectivity due to such revocations.

Exceptions

There may be exceptions to the US Domain policies as well as the PSC policies. Some domain names were granted before the policies were created, and these domains have been grandfathered. This is unavoidable.

In the case of a domain name being granted improperly because of an oversight, we will work with the organization to resolve the problem, but will not allow the oversight to remain. Great care is taken to assure that all policies are followed.

General domain information

Information on domains may be viewed via Rwhois.

Domain information is not required to be available via Rwhois or Whois. The databases are separate from DNS, though they are created from the same templates submitted to acquire or modify a domain.

In some cases, domains delegated by the Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center do not appear in Rwhois since they were created before the database existed.

Authoritative information can be obtained using a DNS query tool like dig or nslookup. If you are able to obtain NS records for a domain, then that domain exists. You can point your query tool to dns1.psc.edu for domains that we serve information on.

Please note that some domains may be temporarily disabled, unreachable, or suspended.

Delegations vs. DNS service

We often get calls from people who have been told that their connectivity problems are due to a problem in the K12.PA.US domain.  Unless other arrangements have been made, we only delegate. This means that we simply list the Primary and Secondary servers for a given domain.  We do not administer the servers.  If there is a problem with hostname resolutions, the administrators for those (server) machines should be contacted. If there is a problem with our delegations, they will contact us.

We currently do not charge for handling delegations, but do so as a free service to our region. If this changes, ample notification will be sent to all listed administrative contacts.

More specific information on domains that PSC delegates under PA.US is given below.

Domains delegated by the PSC under PA.US

SCHOOLS:  3ROX can delegate the following domains under PA.US:

COUNTY/CITY: We delegate under several counties and cities in southwestern Pennsylvania. In the case where a county name is also a city name (e.g. Butler), county governments are assigned CO.county.PA.US (e.g., co.butler.pa.us) and city governments are assigned CI.county.PA.US. (e.g., ci.butler.pa.us).

We delegate the following cities and counties in Pennsylvania:

• Bedford
• Blair
• Butler
• Chester
• Clarion
• Clearfield
• Elk
• Forest
• Indiana
• Lawrence
• Somerset