Registry checks

The registry check retrieves your domain's registration data from the authoritative registry every 12 hours and alerts you when the domain is approaching expiry, has already expired, or has a registry hold placed on it. Catching these problems early prevents outages caused by accidental non-renewal or registrar disputes.

What it monitors

• Expiry date — days remaining until the domain expires
• Registry status codes — holds reported by the registry (clientHold, serverHold)
• Registrar — the registrar name as returned by the registry
• Nameservers — the nameservers registered at the registry level (separate from DNS resolution)
• Registration date — first registered date, used to detect unexpected re-registrations

How it fetches data

DomainCare uses a three-tier lookup:

1. Local overrides — stealth/unofficial RDAP servers for registries not listed in the IANA bootstrap (.io, .de, .ch, .li, .uk, .no, .us, .sk, .ae).
2. IANA RDAP bootstrap (RFC 9224) — the authoritative list of RDAP server URLs per TLD, cached for 24 hours with a stale-on-failure fallback.
3. rdap.org fallback — volunteer-operated RDAP proxy used as a last resort when both tiers above fail.

For TLDs with no working RDAP path (.ro, .it, .es, .jp, .at, .mx, .hk, .cn, .nz, .se, .be, .ru, .eu), DomainCare falls back to a WHOIS port-43 query against the authoritative WHOIS server for that TLD. Port-43 connectivity from cloud infrastructure is unreliable for some registries; if the query fails, the check shows "Unavailable" rather than a false alert.

Some registries deliberately omit fields from their port-43 output — .eu is the notable case: EURid publishes no RDAP, and its port-43 WHOIS never includes the expiry date (or registrant). For such TLDs the registrar and nameservers may still appear, but expiry monitoring isn't possible; other checks are unaffected.

The registry check applies to registered domains only. Subdomains you monitor (e.g. app.example.com) have no registration of their own, so this check doesn't run for them.

How often it runs

The registry check runs once every 12 hours (43,200 seconds) by default. Paid plans can override this per domain via per-check controls. Expiry warning alerts fire based on the days remaining, not consecutive check failures — a single result showing 30 days until expiry is enough to trigger the warning.

Check status. An expired registration, an active registry hold (clientHold/serverHold), or a registration within 7 days of expiry marks the check failing (red) everywhere it appears — tile, domain page, dashboard — matching the high severity of the alerts those states fire. A registration expiring within 30 days shows needs attention (amber).

Alerts this check produces

Event	Tone	When it fires
domain_expired	Failure	Expiry date is in the past (domain has expired)
domain_expiry_warning	Warning	Domain expiry crosses a threshold: 30 days out (Low), 14 days out (Medium), or 7 days out (High — dispatches immediately)
domain_hold_detected	Failure	Registry reports a hold status (clientHold or serverHold)
rdap_recovered	Recovery	All holds cleared and domain is active again after a domain_hold_detected event

What to do when alerts fire

• domain_expired — log in to your registrar immediately. Most registrars offer a grace period (typically 30–45 days) before the domain enters redemption. Renew before the redemption period ends; redemption fees are significant and availability is not guaranteed.
• domain_expiry_warning — renew the domain or enable auto-renew. The alert escalates as expiry approaches: a heads-up at 30 days, a stronger nudge at 14 days, and an immediate high-priority alert at 7 days. Check that the payment method on file with your registrar is current. If you manage many domains, consider a multi-year renewal.
• domain_hold_detected — contact your registrar. A clientHold usually means a billing issue or a registrar-initiated hold. A serverHold comes from the registry and often requires registrar escalation. A domain on hold stops resolving in DNS — its nameserver delegation is suspended.
• rdap_recovered — no action needed. This confirms the hold has been lifted.

Related

• SSL checks — certificates expire independently of domain registration; monitor both
• DNS checks — a domain hold disables DNS resolution; DNS alerts often follow registry alerts
• Alert reference