How To Set Up OpenAlias DNS
Have you used my OpenAlias Record Maker, and copied your valid OpenAlias record? Skip ahead to Step 3.
Otherwise, there's one crucial step first. You need your own domain.
Maybe you've got your own domain because of work. It probably makes sense to use that. You've already built up your brand. Everyone knows you as 'dave@patriotselectrical.com', so, by all means, get people to send their BTC or ETH to 'dave@patriotselectrical.com'. However, for everyone else, I recommend buying a cheap domain; [something].cash. The .cash TLD1 is cheap and memorable. Increase the memorability with a strange one. How about angrybugbear.cash ? Nobody is going to forget that!
Make your OpenAlias Record
I've made it easy for you. Just go here, enter your deets, and get one to be copied and pasted. An OpenAlias record looks something like oa1:xmr recipient_address=46BeWrHpwXmHDpDEUmZBWZblablablalongnumber; recipient_name=dave@patriotelectrical.com;
Let me break that down.
- oa1: <- This tells computers that we are dealing with OpenAlias, version 1.
- xmr <- This is the cryptocurrency. Every cryptocurrency has a 'ticker', a short code. In this case, xmr stands for monero. We know to expect a monero address.
- recipient_address <- This is the money shot. We are trying to find out the actual unique numbers to which we send money. Just like a bank account. Here it is!
- recipient_name <- This is the person to whom we are sending money. It's the owner of the crypto address just-mentioned. It could be an e-mail type address or a person's name to clarify things. It's helpful, because if the name seems wierd, you should pause and look into it.
There is another field. The 'checksum'. This is unnecessary, but I've added it in, because it might be useful in the future.
Add DNS TXT record
Log into your DNS.
Choose 'manage' for your domain (e.g. angrybugbear.cash)
Add a new record. Choose the 'TXT' record option. 'TXT' is basically 'some text that we can make do whatever we want'. It will look something like this:
...to be continued when I get time
- TLD = Top Level Domain. The last part of an Internet name, e.g. com, org, nz, au. (Return)
- The checksum is not much use at the moment, because, if an attacker is clever enough to fake an OpenAlias address, then he or she is clever enough to fake the checksum too. The numbers of the checksum verify the exact recipient_address and recipient_name. In future, there might be a secondary database which keeps track of the valid checksums and allows the users to check that database in real-time for fraud.(Return)