FAQ

The domain name is the address of your website on the Internet. A domain name is a name that is easily memorized and is used to locate and identify computers on the Internet.
e.g. dns.pt; google.com; rtp.pt; icann.org;

Preferably, the contact should be made via our contact form or phone number (+351) 215 907 711 - weekdays from 8:00 to 20:00; weekend from 9:00 to 18:00 (local time, only for phone calls from outside Portugal).

To register your domain you may use entities that are specialised in this field, REGISTRARS, or submit a request directly at www.pt.pt.

A "3em1" domain name is a domain registered under the national initiative "Empresa, Associação ou Sucursal na Hora" and that complies the terms and conditions available at www.3em1.pt.

There are only a set of limitations that you must take into account when choosing your domain name. Thus, the chosen name cannot: 

• Correspond to an already registered name with the same hierarchy;
• Correspond manifestly to obscene language or words or expressions contrary to the law;
• Correspond to a protected designation of origin or to a Portuguese or European geographical indication;
• Correspond to a geographic name, as referred to in article 7 of the .pt Registration Rules;
• Corresponds to the reproduction of a trademark, name or designation of broad and widespread knowledge that constitutes an abusive appropriation of a right or interest of a legally protected third party, done in bad faith, following the criteria referred on article 27 (3) of the .pt Registration Rules.

If the domain name you want to register is taken, you can:

• Choose to register a different domain name;
• Choose to register in .com.pt classifier, if the name is available;
• Choose to resort to institutionalized voluntary arbitration (www.arbitrare.pt) if you consider that there is a conflict over the registered domain name and the conditions referred to in articles 26 and 27 of the Registration Rules are complied.
  

Apart from registration directly under the .pt TLD, there are 2 official .pt classifiers: .gov.pt and .com.pt.

These classifiers were eliminated and new registrations are no longer accepted, however, the domains previously registered under these classifiers will remain valid and can be renewed.

The registration of domain names must respect the limitations provided for in the .pt Registration Rules, namely, in article 6, thus, and not exempting the complete reading of the Registration Rules, the general requirements for registration in each classifier are:

• .pt - domain names under .pt may be registered by all individual or corporate entities. In the case of geographic names, these can only be legitimately registered by the legal administrative authority, as stated in paragraph f) of Glossary;
• .gov.pt – the registration is limited to entities that are part of the Government structure of the Portuguese Republic;
• .com.pt – any individual or corporate bodies may register a domain name under this classifier.

You can carry out a complete search of domains and trademarks, which are freely available at www.pt.pt and/or www.inpi.pt.

It is not necessary to send any documentation when registering a domain name, nevertheless, .PT may request the domain registrant and the managing body to provide, within 2 days, proof of compliance with the provisions of .pt Registration Rules.

10 calendar days. Period after which, except in the conditions expressly provided for in the rules, the domain is considered registered for all purposes.

No. The process of changing a domain name involves removing the previous one and then register a new domain.

A Nic-Handle is the unique alphanumeric identifier in the .pt domain name registration and management system for those responsible for a domain name. Whenever a person/entity registers online for the first time, they are given a Nic-Handle, which will be duly communicated to them. Nic-Handles should be used in the registration of domain names, as they save time and help to ensure the consistency and accuracy of the information.

The creation of a Nic-Handle can be done here.

Changes must be carried out online, through your reserved area, using the access credentials that were attributed to you.

To recover the password, you must go online and carry out the respective request, by using your Nic-Handle, username or VAT/TIN number.

After making your request, at the email address associated to your Nic-Handle, you will receive the username and a link to indicate a new password. This link is valid for a maximum of 5 days and it may only be used once.

In case you don’t remember any of your identifiers (Nic-Handle, username or VAT/TIN NUMBER) or if the email associated with your Nic-Handle is out of date, you should contact .PT and we, in accordance with our security measures, will help you recover or change your password.

The price of registering and maintaining domain names is as follows:



NOTES:

The domain name managing body is responsible for its registration and renewal payments and in the name of which the corresponding invoices/receipts are issued.

The arbitration procedure consists of an extra-judicial mechanism for resolving disputes over domain names, in this cases, the stakeholders can resort to voluntary institutionalised arbitration, according to Voluntary Arbitration Law and designating, for this purpose, ARBITRARE - Arbitration Centre for Industrial Property, Domain Names, Trade Names and Corporate Names. For further information: www.arbitrare.pt.

You can appeal from the arbitration decision to the judicial courts. 

No, but the domain name will not be activated. For this, some name servers need to be correctly configured. If you do not have any technical knowledge on this matter you should contact a specialist in this field.

A DNS Evaluator Tool it at your disposal. By simply inputting the domain name and IP address /primary server's name, you can find out if it is properly configured.

registrars.

It is possible to register a domain name for reservation, for this purpose, it is enough to register your domain and it is not necessary to comply with the technical conditions referred to in the .pt Registration Rules, namely, indicate an IP address or a name server. However, in these cases, the domain name will not be visible on the internet, having no associated services, such as aweb pages or e-mail.

If the domain has just been technically evaluated with a positive result, you should wait a few hours for it to spread on the Internet and then the services associated with it will also be available and visible. 

In the .PT domain system, when the technical data the primary DNS server (IP address or server name) is indicated, a technical evaluation is made automatically by the system for the respective domain. Within the configuration found, besides the information relating to the primary itself, there should be information about the secondary server(s), in this way the system obtains the necessary data.

Please note that all secondaries will also be evaluated and therefore all must be correctly configured for the domain.

Internet Protocol version 6 or IPv6 (also previously referred to as IP new generation or IPng) is meant to support the continued growth of the Internet, both in terms of size and functions. In relation to IPv4, it provides a considerably larger address space, as well as other improvements. For further information about the DNS service in Ipv6 see RFC1886 at http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc1886.

cDNSSEC is the name given to the security extensions to the DNS protocol and was created to protect and authenticate DNS traffic. These extensions seek to validate data by means of digital signatures, using asymmetric key-cryptography. For further information go to www.dnssec.pt.

DNSSEC is the name given to security extensions to the DNS protocol and was created to protect and authenticate DNS traffic.

These extensions seek to validate data by means of digital signatures, using asymmetric key-cryptography.

The additional security provided by using DNSSEC extensions to the DNS protocol make it possible to:

• Overcome vulnerabilities;
• prevent attacks;
• reduce the risk of manipulation;
• provide a secure service;
• reinforce security.

These security extensions to the original protocol consist of a hierarchy of cryptographic signatures that authenticate the origin of the DNS data, and the integrity and authentication of the reply denying the existence of a domain.

These measures protect against corruption of cache memories and modified transmissions and contribute to increasing trust in the Internet and its systems.

The real function of DNS is to match domain names to their corresponding Resource Records. These are divided into classes and types, and a wide variety of types currently exist.

A group of Resource Records with the same domain name, class and type is known as a Resource Record Set (RRset).

Among the commonest types of resource records are SOA records that indicate where the zone authority is delegated, NS records that indicate a name server for the zone and A records that attribute a name to an IP address.

DNSSEC introduces additional Resource Records, which are divided into four different types:

• DNSKEY - Public key;
• RRSIG - Digital Signature of the RRset;
• NSEC/NSEC3 - Authenticated denial of the existence of a domain or Resource Record Set associated with a domain;
• DS - Fingerprint of the public key that links a domain and sub-domain so as to create a chain of trust.

Cryptography is a science that makes it possible to write in a way that hides the content. The objective of cryptography is to enable a limited set of entities, typically two, to exchange information that is unintelligible to third parties or to save and transmit private information on open networks (such as the Internet) without the risk of it being read or modified by anyone other than the intended final recipient of the message.

Cryptography is based on the use of ciphers. A cipher is a specific cryptography technique i.e. a specific way of hiding information.

Asymmetric cryptography, or public-key cryptography, uses a pair of distinct but related keys: a public key for encrypting and a private key for decrypting; it is not possible to calculate the private key from the corresponding public key. Ciphers also allow reverse encryption i.e. encrypting with the private key and decrypting with the public key, which is not very useful for concealing information but is useful for guaranteeing authorship of the information.

Pairs of asymmetric keys are personalised i.e. they are associated with people, services or servers. The private component must be kept secret and should only be known and used by the entity with which it is associated. The public key may (and should) be widely and publicly distributed so that it can be used by any entity.

In operational terms, the main advantage of asymmetric ciphers is the fact that they require fewer keys to effect secure exchanges because they permit a relationship of many to one.

In administrative terms, the main problems underlying the use of asymmetric cryptography are:

• Stringent restriction of private keys to their legitimate owners;
• Reliable distribution of public keys to all who wish to use them;
• Control of the lifetime of pairs of keys.

A spoofing attack is a situation in which an entity (person or program) disguises itself as another by falsifying the DNS data so as to gain an illicit advantage.

Pharming is an attack characterised by poisoning of the DNS cache which consists of corrupting the DNS of a network so that the traffic of a web page is redirected to another.

Phishing is a method of electronic fraud characterised by an attempt to acquire sensitive information such as user names, passwords, credit card details, etc, in which the attacker poses as a trusted entity via disguised electronic communications.

The use of DNSSEC involves an exchange of messages of larger dimensions. In reply to data requests in signed zones, DNS servers with security support will reply with DNSKEY, RRSIG, NSEC3 and/or DS resource records. The addition of these new RRs requires the allocation of greater bandwidth to exchange messages between the server and the client. However, the vast majority of requests initially made to signed zones will be made by clients that do not support security extensions and those additional resource records will not provide any advantage to those clients or increase response times.

In terms of the response capacity of a DNS server with DNSSEC implementation, although there is an increase in access time to the DNS from a signed domain, this is not significant from the point of view of the end user detecting any impact on the response time because we are talking about values of the order of milliseconds.

If .PT identifies that a domain name might configure DNS Abuse, the entities responsible for the domain are notified to ensure that the necessary measures are taken to correct the issue. If the identified malicious activity persists, whenever applicable, .PT will report the situation to the competent authority.

If you identify a domain name that you consider is supporting activities such as the spread of malware, phishing, pharming, botnets and/or spam, you should report this situation to .PT through the email: abuse@pt.pt.

Registrants registered under .pt through a Registrar or administrative contact.

The provision of this service is subject to the express acceptance of the applicable Terms and Conditions.

The .PT only manages the .pt top level domain, so registration under .com, as well as any other TLD must be carried out with the accredited entities for this. For further information, go to the website www.iana.org.

Registration under the .gov.pt hierarchy must be carried out at www.ceger.gov.pt.

There is no limit.