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Introduction

Domainwarden helps you monitor and protect your domains by tracking changes to their SSL, WHOIS and DNS records and configuration. This guide will walk you through adding, managing, and removing domains from your account and how to identify problems.

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Adding a Domain

If a subdomain is provided, i.e. docs.digitalocean.com only digitalocean.com will be parsed when gathering domain data, with SSL configuration being the only exception to this.
1

Navigate to Domains

Go to the Domains page in your dashboard
2

Click Add Domain

Click the Add Domain button
3

Fill in Domain Details

Enter the following information:Required Fields
  • Label: Provide a friendly name for easy identification (e.g., “DigitalOcean”).
  • Domain: Enter the domain you want to monitor (e.g., digitalocean.com).
  • WHOIS Check Interval: Set how frequently Domainwarden should check for configuration changes.
  • DNS Check Interval: Set how frequently Domainwarden should check for DNS changes.
Optional Field
  • Description: Add a short sentence about this domain for your reference.
4

Confirm and Monitor

Click Add Domain and Domainwarden will:
  • Retrieve the current WHOIS information as a baseline.
  • Set up monitoring based on your chosen interval.
  • Display the domain details on your dashboard.
  • Send an email notification if any issues are detected on subsequent checks.

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Bulk Importing

This feature requires a Premium or higher plan.
If you have multiple domains to monitor, you can use the Bulk Import feature to add them with ease.
1

Navigate to Bulk Import

Go to Bulk Import in your dashboard.
2

Prepare Your File

Create a text file with the following specifications:
  • Must be a .txt file
  • Maximum file size of 5MB
  • One domain per line
3

Set Monitoring Intervals

Choose your preferred WHOIS and DNS check intervals. These settings will apply to all domains in the file.
4

Upload and Confirm

Upload your file and click Upload Domains. Domainwarden will:
  • Format each domain properly before importing
  • Skip any domains that already exist in your account
  • Send you an email summary of the imported domains
Existing domains in your file will be skipped automatically to prevent duplicates.

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Monitoring and Checks

Domainwarden performs automated monitoring on your domains. Choose from these check intervals: Basic/Trial Plan
  • Hourly
  • Every 6 hours
  • Every 12 hours
  • Daily
  • Weekly
Premium Plan
  • Every 10 minutes
  • Every 15 minutes
  • Every 30 minutes
  • Every 45 minutes
  • Hourly
  • Every 6 hours
  • Every 12 hours
  • Daily
  • Weekly
Checks run at your selected interval from the previous check completion. SSL certificate checks run hourly and are always included. If a check interval is reduced (for example, from hourly to every 10 minutes), a check will be dispatched immediately to align with the next scheduled check time.

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WHOIS (RDAP) Checks

Domainwarden uses a combination of RDAP and WHOIS checks to query domain information obtained from your registrar. Our WHOIS checks monitor the registration information associated with your domain. We track changes to:
  • Registrar information
  • Domain status codes
  • Registration and expiration dates
  • Name server configuration changes
  • Domain contact information updates
When changes are detected, you’ll be notified instantly through the Notification Channels configured for your domain. You’ll receive email reminders about your domain’s expiration one month, two weeks, and one week before it expires.
Learn more about WHOIS records and lookups on the ICANN website.

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DNS Checks

Domainwarden monitors your domain’s DNS records for any changes. If a change is detected, you’ll be notified through your configured Notification Channels. You can configure the DNS Records that Domainwarden monitors within the settings of your Domain. By default, we’ll check all the records.

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SSL Checks

Domainwarden automatically checks your domain’s SSL certificate to ensure it’s valid and hasn’t expired. If your certificate is nearing its expiration date, you will receive an email notification. SSL checks are performed hourly with no configuration needed.

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Notifications

Email notifications are configured by default for all accounts. Additional notification channels are available, some channels may depend on the type of subscription plan you have.

Configure Notifications

Visit our Notifications page to learn about our available notification channels.

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Manual Checking

Need to verify your domain immediately? You can manually check both WHOIS and DNS records from your domain’s Settings page. Manual checks are limited to once every two hours per domain.
Manual checks don’t affect your scheduled monitoring intervals and are useful when you’ve made recent changes to your domain configuration.

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Disabling a Domain

In Domainwarden, you have the ability to enable or disable domains. When a domain is disabled, scheduled monitoring checks and expiration reminders are paused until the domain is re-enabled. You may want to disable a domain temporarily during maintenance or migration to prevent unnecessary notifications from Domainwarden. To disable a domain, navigate to the Settings tab and scroll down to the Domain Monitoring section.
Disabled domains will still count towards your plan limit.

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Disabling Specific Components

Domainwarden gives you the flexibility to customize monitoring for each domain. If a particular component isn’t needed, such as SSL monitoring; you can disable it from the domain’s settings page. You can disable the following components independently:
  • WHOIS Monitoring – Domain registration and expiration data
  • DNS Monitoring – DNS record change detection
  • SSL Monitoring – Certificate validity and expiration tracking
Disabling a specific component will hide it from the interface.
Disabling the entire domain will pause all monitoring checks, regardless of individual component settings.

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Removing a Domain

1

Navigate to Domain

Go to the domain you want to remove inside Domainwarden.
2

Click Destroy

Navigate to the “Settings” tab and scroll down to the Destroy section. Click the “Destroy Domain” button.
3

Confirm Deletion

Read the dialog that appears and if you wish to continue, click Yes, destroy domain to remove the domain.
Support cannot recover any data that is deleted. Please make sure you want to remove a domain.

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Diagnosing Domain Issues

Domainwarden may be unable to retrieve information about a domain for several reasons. Here are the most common causes.

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Common Issues

  • Newly Registered Domain Just registered your domain? It can take 24-72 hours for DNS records to propagate across the internet. Until propagation completes, domain information cannot be retrieved.
  • Uncommon or New TLDs Some TLDs like .xyz, .club, or .art may not be supported yet. If you’re using an uncommon TLD, contact support for assistance.
  • Unregistered or Lapsed Domain If a domain has been deleted or has expired, there is no data to retrieve.
  • Registrar or Registry Issues Your registrar or the registry managing your TLD may be experiencing temporary outages or technical problems, which prevents access to the latest information.

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Still Having Problems?

Most issues resolve automatically through our retry system. If problems persist, contact our support team.