What is Delegate Access and Why Does Glimmernet Need It?
If you’ve been asked to grant Glimmernet delegate access to your domain, you might be wondering what that actually means — and whether it’s safe. The short answer is that it’s the most secure way to give us what we need, and you stay in control of your domain the entire time.
What is delegate access?
Delegate access is a way of giving someone permission to manage specific settings on your domain without transferring ownership or sharing your personal login credentials. Every registrar handles it slightly differently and may use different terminology — but the concept is the same across all of them, and we refer to it as delegate access regardless of where your domain is registered.
Think of it like giving a trusted contractor a key to your office. They can get in, do the work, and leave but you own the building, you can change the locks at any time, and they can’t sell the place out from under you.
What does Glimmernet actually do with it?
Delegate access gives us the ability to manage the technical settings on your domain – primarily DNS records. DNS records control where your website is hosted, where your email is delivered, and how your domain is verified with various services. In practice we use it to:
- Point your domain to the correct web server
- Set up or update email authentication records (SPF, DKIM, DMARC)
- Migrate your site to a new server when needed
- Make emergency DNS changes quickly without waiting for back-and-forth
What can’t Glimmernet do with delegate access?
Delegate access does not give us the ability to transfer your domain to another registrar, change the registered owner, or access your billing information. You remain the owner of your domain at all times. If you ever want to remove our access you can do so at any time through your registrar account — no need to involve us.
Why does Glimmernet need it instead of just asking me to make changes?
We get this question a lot and it’s a fair one. The honest answer is that some situations don’t allow time for back-and-forth. When we need to migrate your site to a new server, respond to a security incident, or perform emergency maintenance, DNS changes sometimes need to happen immediately – including in the middle of the night or over a weekend. Waiting for you to log in and make a change manually could mean unnecessary downtime for your site and your customers. Delegate access means we can act quickly when it matters most, without ever waking you up to ask for your password.
Is it safe?
Yes – and it’s actually more secure than sharing a password. You never share your personal login credentials with us. Each member of the Glimmernet team has their own individually secured account with two-factor authentication enabled. Because we use a dedicated access method rather than your personal login, you can revoke our access at any time without changing your own password or affecting anything else in your account.
We take the trust our customers place in us seriously. Delegate access is the standard, professional way for a web services company to manage client domains and it’s designed specifically to protect both parties.
How do I set it up?
The process depends on where your domain is registered. See the relevant article for your registrar:
Not sure which registrar you’re using or have questions before getting started? Open a ticket and we’ll walk you through it.
