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Node Provider Domain Name Guide

How to assign domain names and DNS records to IPv4-enabled node machines, with a walk-through of a typical Cloudflare configuration.

·May 4, 2026·2 min read

Each IPv4-enabled node machine needs a domain name with matching DNS records. Providers do not need to register a separate domain per node — a single domain with per-node subdomains is the conventional pattern.

Naming convention

The recommended pattern is:

nodeX.<dc>.<domain>

Where nodeX identifies the machine within the rack, <dc> is a short identifier for the data center, and <domain> is a domain the provider controls. For example:

node1.aa3.nodeprovider.com

DNS records to create

For each IPv4-enabled node, create two records:

TypePoints toPurpose
AIPv4 addressIPv4 connectivity
AAAAIPv6 addressIPv6 connectivity

The IPv4 and IPv6 addresses come from the deployment terminal output when the node is provisioned with IC-OS.

Setup steps

  1. Collect the IP addresses for the node from the IC-OS deployment output.
  2. Create the A and AAAA records at the DNS provider, using the nodeX.<dc>.<domain> subdomain pattern above.
  3. Verify the records propagate and resolve to the intended addresses (see Verification, below).

Cloudflare walkthrough

Cloudflare is one common choice and the upstream guide walks through it specifically. The flow is:

  1. Create a free Cloudflare account.
  2. Add the domain to the Cloudflare dashboard.
  3. Update the nameservers at the original DNS registrar to the Cloudflare nameservers Cloudflare assigns.
  4. Wait for nameserver propagation.
  5. In the Cloudflare DNS panel, add an A record and an AAAA record for each node, using the nodeX.<dc> subdomain and the IPv4 / IPv6 addresses from deployment.

Other DNS providers follow the same shape — only the dashboard differs.

Verification

Once the records are in place, confirm them from a machine outside the data center.

Resolve the records:

dig A nodeX.<dc>.<domain> +short
dig AAAA nodeX.<dc>.<domain> +short

Test reachability:

ping  nodeX.<dc>.<domain>
ping6 nodeX.<dc>.<domain>

The output of the dig commands must match the IPv4 and IPv6 addresses the node was provisioned with. The ping and ping6 commands must reach the machine.

[!TIP] If the records resolve correctly but the pings fail, the most likely cause is upstream packet filtering. Per the Networking Guide, node traffic must not be filtered upstream of IC-OS.

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