ds

.za.net

Generic top-level domain — names are registered at the third level, under .net

WHOIS

Register
—first year
Renew
—a year
Transfer
—to move it
Registrars
—quoting it
Lookup
WHOISanswers for it
DNSSEC
Signed1 DS record in the root
Level
Thirdmybrand.za.net

Check a name

One command, straight against the registry — no account, no page to load.

Fills the command and the registrar links below in with your own name. The page is static — nothing is looked up here, and nothing you type leaves the browser.

ds mybrand --tld za.net

Add --where for the registrars and the registry's rules, --registry for the server that answered, or --all-info for everything at once.

What it costs

No registrar in the price table bundled with ds quotes .za.net, so the CLI prints no figure beside it — one of 927 such TLDs. That is a gap in the table as often as it is a TLD nobody sells. See Prices for supplying your own table with --pricing-file.

Who can register

No eligibility rule is on file for .za.net, which is not the same as a promise that it is open: the list is hand-maintained and covers the restricted TLDs a registrar is likely to offer you. Check the registry's own page before counting on a name. 81 TLDs do carry a rule — see Who can register.

How ds answers for it

RDAP first, WHOIS second — the same order for every TLD. .za.net has no RDAP service, so the answer comes from WHOIS text on port 43.

WHOIS
http://www.za.net/cgi-bin/whois.cgi?domain=Queried over HTTP, from the bundled whois.json. The name is called free when the reply contains No such domain — text matching, which is why RDAP is preferred where it exists.

ds mybrand --tld za.net --registry prints whichever of these answered. If a bundled WHOIS host has gone stale, IANA is asked who serves .za.net today. See Accuracy notes.

The registry

From IANA's delegation record for .net — .za.net is a zone under it, so the registry, the servers and the dates below are .net's. .za.net is a generic TLD.

Run by
VeriSign Global Registry ServicesBased in United States of America. ICANN records the contracted registry operator as VeriSign, Inc. Delegated 1985-01-01, record last updated 2026-03-10.
Registry site
www.verisigninc.comWhere the registry documents .net — its rules, its accredited registrars, and any launch phases. Not a shop: registries sell wholesale to registrars, not to you.
Published services
rdap.verisign.com · whois.verisign-grs.comWhat the registry itself tells IANA it runs. Note: the bundled table asks http://www.za.net/cgi-bin/whois.cgi?domain= instead — one of them is out of date, and ds falls back to asking IANA when a bundled host goes stale.
Name servers
a.gtld-servers.netb.gtld-servers.netc.gtld-servers.netd.gtld-servers.nete.gtld-servers.netf.gtld-servers.netg.gtld-servers.neth.gtld-servers.neti.gtld-servers.netj.gtld-servers.netk.gtld-servers.netl.gtld-servers.netm.gtld-servers.netThe 13 authoritative servers for the .net zone — what the root delegates to. Nothing ds queries directly; they are what makes a registered name resolve.

What it is

Derived from the root zone and ICANN's registry list — each one is a fact with a source.

  • generic IANA Root Zone Database types it "generic"
  • legacy-gtld ICANN delegated it before 2013-10-23 — see delegated

In the root zone

The delegation itself, read out of the root zone — serial 2026090900, on 2026-09-09. The registry section above is IANA's record of what .net was delegated to; this is what the root actually answers with when a resolver asks it where .net lives. .za.net is not in the root zone — nothing below the top level is. It resolves because .net does, on .net's servers.

Delegated to
  • a.gtld-servers.net192.5.6.302001:503:a83e::2:30
  • b.gtld-servers.net192.33.14.302001:503:231d::2:30
  • c.gtld-servers.net192.26.92.302001:503:83eb::30
  • d.gtld-servers.net192.31.80.302001:500:856e::30
  • e.gtld-servers.net192.12.94.302001:502:1ca1::30
  • f.gtld-servers.net192.35.51.302001:503:d414::30
  • g.gtld-servers.net192.42.93.302001:503:eea3::30
  • h.gtld-servers.net192.54.112.302001:502:8cc::30
  • i.gtld-servers.net192.43.172.302001:503:39c1::30
  • j.gtld-servers.net192.48.79.302001:502:7094::30
  • k.gtld-servers.net192.52.178.302001:503:d2d::30
  • l.gtld-servers.net192.41.162.302001:500:d937::30
  • m.gtld-servers.net192.55.83.302001:501:b1f9::30
The 13 name servers the root hands out for .net, with the glue addresses that come with them — every one of them answers over IPv6. None of this is what ds queries: these servers know which names exist, not who registered them.
DNSSEC
Signed — 1 DS record in the root
  • key 37331ECDSA P-256/SHA-256 · SHA-2562F0BEC2D6F79DFBD1D08FD21A3AF92D0E39A4B9EF1E3F4111FFF282490DA453B
Each one is a fingerprint of .net's own signing key, published by the root and signed with the root's key — which is how a resolver that trusts only one key can prove an answer under .za.net came from its registry and was not tampered with in transit. It says nothing about who owns a name or whether one is free.

Ask the root yourself — no registry involved, and the same records this section was built from: dig +norec @a.root-servers.net net. NS and dig +norec @a.root-servers.net net. DS.

Under .net

Also answered by http://www.za.net/cgi-bin/whois.cgi?domain=