Chose your color

Frequently visited

Frequently asked questions

  • I am looking for a domain name registrant. Where can I look it up?

    The Whois is an easy-to-use tool for checking the availability of a .nl domain name. If the domain name is already taken, you can see who has registered it.

    On the page looking up a domain name you will find more information about what a domain name is, how the Whois works and how the privacy of personal data is protected. Alternatively, you can go straight to look for a domain name via the Whois.

  • I would like to transfer my domain name to another registrar. What is the procedure?

    To get your domain name transferred, you need the token (unique ID number) for your domain name. Your existing registrar has the token and is obliged to give it to you within five days, if you ask for it. The procedure for changing your registrar is described on the page transferring your domain name.

  • The details registered about me/my company are incorrect or out of date. How can I get them updated?

    To update the contact details associated with your domain name, you need to contact your registrar. Read more about updating contact details.

  • Why is my domain name in quarantine?

    When a domain name is cancelled, we aren't told the reason, so we can't tell you. You'll need to ask your registrar. The advantage of quarantine is that, if a name's cancelled by mistake, you can always get it back.

    One common reason is that the contract between you and your registrar says you've got to renew the registration every year. If you haven't set up automatic renewal and you don't renew manually, the registration will expire.

  • Ik heb een klacht over mijn provider/registrar. Kan ik daarvoor bij SIDN terecht?

    Wanneer je een klacht hebt over of een geschil met je registrar dan zijn er verschillende mogelijkheden om tot een oplossing te komen. Hierover lees je meer op pagina klacht over registrar. SIDN heeft geen formele klachtenprocedure voor het behandelen van een klacht over jouw registrar.

  • What conditions do I have to meet as a registrar?

    Would you like to be able to register domain names for customers or for your own organisation by dealing directly with SIDN? If so, you can become a .nl registrar. Read more about the conditions and how to apply for registrar status on the page becoming a registrar.

More frequently asked questions

IPv4 increasingly optional on virtual private servers

Opting for IPv6-only means saving €1 to €3 per month per IPv4 address

The abbreviation IPv4 in a virtual network and internet concept
  • Thursday 10 November 2022

With IPv6 adoption progressing steadily and IPv4 address prices rising steeply, IPv6-only servers are now readily available. The servers are particularly attractive for back-end systems that are accessed only by the operator's own machines or by internal users on an IPv6 network. So, for example, they're good for databases, intranet services and transaction processors that the general internet public can't reach.

If you're sure that a cloud server doesn't need an IPv4 address, you can lease an IPv6-only server from a growing number of providers. And a system without an IPv4 address is usually slightly cheaper, making it particularly attractive if you use numerous (small) virtual servers.

Growing selection of providers

We have previously reported on Swiss company Ungleich profiling itself explicitly as an IPv6-only service provider, on PCextreme extending its service offering to include an IPv6-only virtual private server (VPS), and on Amazon adding IPv6-only networks and hosts to its AWS service.

Now, the trend is gathering pace. Web hosting firm TransIP offers a cheap IPv6-only VPS for testing and development. Meanwhile, German hosting provider Hetzner has made IPv4 optional, in the form of an easily disabled add-on. And Ungleich is experimenting with an IPv6-only Matrix server.

"Prices will remain high"

"For a long time now, the pool of available IPv4 addresses has been almost empty at RIPE NCC," said Hetzner's spokesperson. "That's why RIPE stopped assigning IPv4 nets. There has also been increased demand for IPv4 addresses. As a result, IPv4 address trading is a fast-growing activity."

"Supply and demand determine the prices charged by IPv4 brokers, so the prices have skyrocketed, and we assume that they'll continue to rise. The vast majority of devices on the internet still use IPv4, and it will take a number of years before IPv4 is truly phased out in favour of IPv6. For the foreseeable future, we will live in a world that has both IPv4 and IPv6, where many systems run on dual-stack IP systems. Prices for IPv4 will likely remain high until IPv6 has become much more popular."

Investing in the future

"We initially tried hard to avoid passing on higher prices to our customers, and absorbed the costs ourselves. However, prices increased so dramatically that we couldn't go on doing that. We therefore increased our prices for IPv4 addresses at the beginning of 2022."

Hetzner expects that it'll have to continue buying additional IPv4 address blocks, driving up prices still further. "Some customers asked us for an IPv6-only solution to save them paying for increasingly expensive IPv4 addresses. So we made it possible to lease a server with just an IPv6 /64 subnet. Our dedicated root servers still include an IPv4 add-on by default, but clients can easily remove it when placing an order. That saves them €1.70 per address per month."

"For us, IPv6 isn't a business model. But we're happy when customers opt for IPv6, because we see the implementation of IPv6 as an investment in the future."

Sustainability

Most other IPv6-only providers take a similar view and highlight various other benefits of using IPv6.

For Ungleich, IPv6 is a natural part of a wider proposition. "Our whole company is geared to sustainability," CEO Nico Schottelius previously told us. "We use 100 per cent renewable energy, for example, and we're a zero-carbon provider. But that's not all: we use repurposed buildings in the Glarus canton and our (refurbished) servers have no active cooling. We also support the local community with knowledge and affordable digital services."

"Our focus on IPv6 is a natural part of that philosophy: IPv4 is unsustainable, for us, for users and for content providers. If we didn't push IPv6, we'd be neglecting our customers' long-term interests."

According to PCextreme CTO Wido den Hollander, considerable savings can be made by deploying IPv6-only. "With IPv6, the type of port scanning you get with IPv4 simply isn't possible. So abuse is much less of an issue. If a customer's server gets hacked and starts scanning the entire IPv4 address space, you've got a big job on your hands. Hackers can do that with IPv4, because the address space is only four billion addresses. With IPv6, your internal address space alone is much bigger than that. So a hacker hasn't got a hope of scanning the whole internet."

"So IPv6-only servers have the big advantage of being quiet. With traditional set-ups, abuse is a major cost item – mainly because of the manual response that's required – and we'd like to be rid of that cost."

"We keep hearing from the big access providers that there's no business case for going over to IPv6. But I don't think we should be waiting until customers start asking for IPv6. It's our responsibility, as technical service providers, to make sure that the internet works, not only now, but next year and in 10 years' time."