Hostlelo nameservers: find yours and switch your domain safely

Your Hostlelo nameservers are the ones listed for your own service: in your hosting welcome email, in your service details in the client area, or confirmed by support. We deliberately do not print one fixed pair here, because the right values depend on the server and service you have, and a pair copied from an old article or a forum post can be wrong for your account. Once you have them, switching is a short job at your registrar. The work that decides whether it goes smoothly happens before you click save: getting the DNS zone ready, sorting out email, and handling DNSSEC.

A made-up example of why the order matters. Karim runs a small accounting firm. His email is on Microsoft 365 and his old website sat on another host. He moves the site to Hostlelo, changes the nameservers that same afternoon, and the site appears within the hour. But his new DNS zone on the hosting server only has the default records, so incoming mail starts heading to the web server instead of Microsoft. Two days of client emails go astray before anyone notices.

This guide walks you through the whole switch in the right order: checking what you have now, finding the right Hostlelo values, preparing the zone, changing the nameservers at your registrar, handling DNSSEC, and proving it worked. There is also a section on branded nameservers like ns1.yourcompany.com for VPS and reseller customers.

What nameservers do, in one minute

Nameservers are the servers that answer the question "where is everything for this domain?" Your registrar (where you bought the domain) stores which nameservers are in charge. Those nameservers hold the DNS zone: the website address, the mail servers, verification records and so on.

Think of the nameservers as the address book your domain has chosen to trust. Changing nameservers does not move your website or your mailboxes; it swaps the entire address book. Every entry you need has to be in the new book before you switch, or people looking something up will not find it.

A nameserver change is all or nothing. If you only want the website to move and everything else to stay put, you may not need a nameserver change at all. Our guide on connecting a domain to hosting explains the alternative of pointing just the website records.

Step 1: See which nameservers your domain uses now

Before changing anything, find out where your DNS currently lives. On macOS or Linux:

dig +short NS example.com
whois example.com | grep -i "name server"

On Windows:

nslookup -type=NS example.com

The dig and nslookup commands show what DNS reports right now. The whois command shows what is recorded with the registry, which is what your registrar actually controls. If you prefer a website, ICANN's lookup tool at lookup.icann.org shows the registrar and nameservers for most domains.

Write down the current nameservers. If something goes wrong, putting them back is your fastest way out.

Step 2: Find the right Hostlelo nameservers

Check these places, in this order:

1. Your hosting welcome email. It normally includes the nameservers for your service along with your login details.
2. The client area. Sign in at panel.hostlelo.com, open your service, and look at its details.
3. Support. If you cannot find them, or you have more than one service and are unsure which applies, open a ticket or message support on WhatsApp and ask for the nameservers for that specific service.

Copy the names exactly. Cloudflare's own setup guide puts it bluntly: if nameserver names are not copied exactly, DNS will not resolve correctly. One wrong letter takes the whole domain offline.

Quick tip: if you run your own VPS with a control panel such as cPanel or DirectAdmin, the nameservers may be ones you set up yourself. The branded nameserver section below covers that case.

Step 3: Get the zone ready on the hosting side

This is the step people skip, and it is the one that causes outages.

Check the records your domain needs

Open your old DNS provider and take a screenshot or export of every record. Then open the zone on your Hostlelo hosting. On cPanel, that is cPanel > Domains > Zone Editor, then Manage next to the domain. Make sure the new zone has:

• Website records: an A record for the domain and for www pointing at your hosting server (usually created automatically when the domain is added to your account).
• Email records: the MX records for wherever your email really lives.
• Email authentication: TXT records for SPF and DMARC, and the DKIM record for your email provider. Our SPF, DKIM and DMARC guide explains each one.
• Verification records: TXT or CNAME records for Google Workspace, Microsoft 365, search consoles, payment gateways and similar services.
• Everything else: subdomains pointing at other services (a shop, a booking system, a helpdesk), and any CAA records.

Fix email routing if your mail is elsewhere

When a domain is added to a cPanel account, cPanel builds a fresh zone from a template, and that zone usually expects mail to be handled on the hosting server itself. If your email is with Google Workspace, Microsoft 365 or another provider, two things need to change:

1. In Zone Editor, replace the default MX records with the ones your email provider gives you.
2. In cPanel > Email > Email Routing, check the setting for the domain. Remote Mail Exchanger means "the server will not accept mail for the domain" and sends it to your real mail provider instead. Automatically Detect Configuration works from the MX entries in the local zone, so it only gets this right once those records are correct.

cPanel's documentation warns that misconfigured Email Routing settings can disrupt your domain's ability to receive mail. A common symptom: messages sent from your own website (contact forms, order emails) to your own domain never arrive, because the hosting server still thinks it should deliver them locally.

Step 4: Handle DNSSEC before the switch

DNSSEC adds signatures to your DNS so resolvers can check the answers are genuine. The signatures are tied to your current DNS provider, and your registrar holds a matching DS record. If you change nameservers while that DS record still points to the old provider's keys, validating resolvers reject the answers. Cloudflare's documentation warns this "can cause your domain to become unreachable."

To check whether DNSSEC is on, look for a DNSSEC section in your registrar account, or run dig +short DS example.com. If that returns nothing, DNSSEC is not active and you can move on.

If it is active, turn it off at the registrar a day or so before the switch:

• Namecheap (custom DNS): Domain List > Manage > Advanced DNS, then use the toggle in the DNSSEC section. Namecheap says to allow about 60 minutes for the setting to take effect.
• GoDaddy: Domain Portfolio, select the domain, then DNS > DNSSEC. With GoDaddy nameservers you select Turn Off DNSSEC and Remove; with other nameservers you manage the DS records yourself.

Then wait for the old DS record's cache time to pass before changing nameservers. Once the switch is stable, you can switch DNSSEC on again with the new provider's values if your new DNS provider supports it.

Step 5: Change the nameservers at your registrar

Now the actual change. The menu names differ by registrar, but the pattern is the same: find the nameserver setting, choose custom nameservers, paste the values, save.

• Namecheap: Domain List > Manage, then in Nameservers choose Custom DNS, enter each name and click the green check mark. Namecheap says ISPs may take up to 24 hours (more in rare cases) to update their caches.
• GoDaddy: Domain Portfolio, select the domain, then DNS > Nameservers, choose I'll use my own nameservers, enter the names, then Save and Continue. GoDaddy says most changes take effect within an hour but can take up to 48 hours.
• Cloudflare Registrar: you cannot point these domains at another company's nameservers. Cloudflare's FAQ says all domains on Cloudflare Registrar use Cloudflare nameservers; to use different ones, you must transfer the domain to another registrar. If your domain is there, keep DNS at Cloudflare and point the website records at your Hostlelo server instead.
• Other registrars: look for labels such as Nameservers, Custom DNS, DNS servers or Change DNS. Editing NS records inside a DNS zone is not the same thing; the change must be made in the domain's registration settings.

Save, then resist the urge to change it again for a few hours while caches catch up.

Step 6: Prove the switch worked

Use these commands to compare the registry, the new nameservers and the public view:

whois example.com | grep -i "name server"
dig +short NS example.com @1.1.1.1
dig +short A example.com @ns1.your-assigned-nameserver.example
dig +short MX example.com @ns1.your-assigned-nameserver.example

What you want to see:

• whois lists the Hostlelo nameservers you entered. This usually updates quickly and confirms the registrar saved the change.
• The public resolver eventually shows the same nameservers. Until it does, you are waiting on caches.
• Asking the new nameserver directly returns your hosting server's IP for the website and your real email provider for MX. If these are wrong, fix the zone now, before the rest of the world arrives.

Then send a test email from an outside account (such as a personal Gmail) to your business address, and reply to it. Check the website on mobile data as well as Wi-Fi. If anything looks stale, our DNS propagation guide shows how to tell caching from real problems.

Keep your old hosting and old DNS zone active for a couple of days. Some visitors will keep reaching the old setup until their resolvers refresh.

Branded nameservers like ns1.yourcompany.com

If you run a VPS with a control panel, or resell hosting, you may want nameservers on your own domain, for example ns1.yourcompany.com and ns2.yourcompany.com. There is a chicken-and-egg problem: to find ns1.yourcompany.com, resolvers need to ask the nameservers for yourcompany.com, which is ns1.yourcompany.com itself. The fix is a glue record: you register the nameserver names and their IP addresses with your registrar, and the registry hands out those IPs directly.

You need the IP addresses for each nameserver from your server or hosting provider first. Then:

• Namecheap: Domain List > Manage > Advanced DNS, find Personal DNS Server, click Add Nameserver, enter the host name (such as ns1) and the IP address, and click Done. Namecheap notes you also need matching A records for those names, some domain endings require a different IP for each nameserver, and unused .com and .net personal nameservers are removed after 30 days.
• GoDaddy: Domain Portfolio, select the domain, then DNS > Hostnames > Add Hostname, enter the host (such as ns1) and its IPv4 address, and Save. GoDaddy says new hostnames are ready to use within 90 minutes in most cases.

On the server side, the DNS service must actually be running and answering for your domains on those IPs, and both names should resolve before you point any customer domain at them. Ideally the two nameservers sit on different IP addresses so one failure does not take everything down.

Troubleshooting

The website works but email has stopped

The new zone is missing your email provider's MX or authentication records, or cPanel Email Routing is still set to local delivery. Fix the MX records in Zone Editor first, then set Email Routing to Remote Mail Exchanger if your mail is hosted elsewhere.

Website forms cannot email your own domain

Classic Email Routing problem. The server delivers mail for your domain to a local mailbox that nobody reads. Switch to Remote Mail Exchanger when your mail lives with another provider.

The domain fails everywhere with SERVFAIL

Usually DNSSEC: the registrar still has a DS record that does not match the new nameservers. Remove the DS record at the registrar. If DNSSEC is not involved, check the nameserver names for typos.

The registrar will not accept the nameservers

Some registrars check that a nameserver name exists and answers before accepting it. Check the spelling, ask support to confirm the values, and for branded nameservers make sure the glue records were registered first.

Some visitors still see the old website

Their resolvers are still holding cached answers. Confirm the new nameserver gives the right answer directly. If it does, wait. If it does not, fix the zone. Also look for an old AAAA record pointing at the previous host.

A default page appears instead of your site

DNS is working, but the domain is not yet set up in your hosting account, or it is attached to a different account. Ask support to check where the domain is added.

The one message worth forwarding

Send this to Hostlelo support before you switch:

"I am moving example.com to my Hostlelo service and plan to change the nameservers. Please confirm the exact nameservers for my service, that the domain is set up on the account, and that the zone contains our current website, email (MX, SPF, DKIM, DMARC) and verification records. Our email is hosted with another provider, so mail routing should be remote, not local."

The takeaway: get the exact values from your own service, build the complete zone and fix email routing first, turn off DNSSEC before the switch, then change the nameservers once and verify with whois and dig.