Month: August 2018

  • No more google

    I figured I should probably get some notes down about moving off google.

    To start, I’ll get a list of the things i was able to easily replace:

    I’m still using:

    • gplay music/youtube
    • google maps (open streetmap isn’t good enough to replace it)
    • google photos – but this is going to be replaced long-term with syncthing

    2024 Update: No update. Still using maps, photos, and music.

  • DNS shenanigans post-mortem

    Let’s start by saying I probably should have done a bit more research before diving head-first into this endeavor.

    I’ve been thinking about transferring my domains off google domains for some time now, as part of my personal goal to self host and limit my dependence on google and other large third-party monstrosities. Along that line, I asked for registrar recommendations. ~tomasino responded with namesilo. I found that they had $3.99 registrations for .team and .zone domains, which is 1/10th the cost of the $40 registration on google domains.

    I started out by getting the list of domains from the google console. 2 or 3 of them had been registered within the last 60 days, so I wasn’t able to transfer those just yet. I grabbed all the domain unlock codes and dropped them into namesilo. I failed to realize that the DNS panel on google domains would disappear as soon as it went through, but more importantly that the nameservers would be left pointing to the old defunct google domains ones.

    I updated the nameservers as soon as I realized this error from the namesilo panel. Some of the domains propagated quickly. Others, not so much. tilde.team was still in a state of flux between the old and new nameservers.

    In a rush to get the DNS problem fixed, and under recommendation from several people on IRC, I decided to switch the nameservers for tilde.team and tilde.zone to cloudflare, leaving another layer of flux for the DNS to be stuck in…

    Of the five domains that I moved to cloudflare, 3 returned with a DNSSEC error, claiming that I needed to remove the DS record from that zone. D’oh!

    I removed the DNSSEC from those affected domains, so we should be good to go as soon as it all propagates through the fickle beast that is DNS.