Public Blank

What Is This

A parking page is the page a visitor lands on when they type a domain that has DNS but doesn't yet have a real site. The boring options are: a registrar's ad-laden default, a "this domain is for sale" page, or a 404 from a misconfigured server. None of those are great for a domain you own and care about.

public-blank.com is the alternative: point a domain here and visitors get a static HTTPS page that tells them the site is parked, without any tracking or monetisation. Then when you're ready to launch the real site, you change the DNS and stop pointing here. That's it.

How to Use

There is no self-service portal. To park a domain:

1. Email root@public-common.com with the domain you want parked.
2. An nginx server block is added for your domain, and a TLS certificate is issued for it via Let's Encrypt (DNS-01).
3. You receive the IP addresses and instructions for the DNS records to set.
4. Set the A and AAAA records at your DNS provider as described.
5. Once DNS propagates, your domain serves the parking page over HTTPS automatically.

To unpark a domain, change its DNS to point somewhere else; the parking record on this server can be removed on request.

DNS Setup

The host is single-node, dual-stack:

For your domain (e.g. example.com), the apex needs:

example.com.        IN  A     65.21.116.54
example.com.        IN  AAAA  2a01:4f9:3071:2308::1

If you want www to also park here:

www.example.com.    IN  A     65.21.116.54
www.example.com.    IN  AAAA  2a01:4f9:3071:2308::1

If your registrar's UI uses the records form rather than zone-file syntax, the equivalent is: type A, host @, value 65.21.116.54; then type AAAA, host @, value 2a01:4f9:3071:2308::1.

Confirm propagation against any validating resolver — for example public-rdns.com:

dig @public-rdns.com +short example.com A
dig @public-rdns.com +short example.com AAAA

If you host your authoritative DNS on public-adns.com, this is just two more lines in your zone file plus a serial bump.

TLS

Each parked domain gets its own Let's Encrypt certificate, issued via ACME with the DNS-01 challenge and an ECC P-256 key. Certificates are managed centrally on public-common.com and synchronised to this host before nginx reloads.

• HTTPS is on by default, on TCP 443 (TLS) and UDP 443 (QUIC, HTTP/3).
• Plain HTTP on port 80 is also served, so old clients and ACME HTTP-01 fallbacks still reach the page. Use the https:// URL when you want TLS — there is no automatic redirect.
• Certificates auto-renew. There is nothing for you to do.

Privacy

The whole point of a parking page is that it does nothing interesting. We do not log individual page views. No visitor data is stored, sold, or shared with third parties.

• No access logging — page views are never written to disk.
• No analytics, no cookies, no third-party content — the parking page is static HTML served from disk.
• No ads, no monetisation — there is nothing to monetise; this exists so you don't have to host a parking page yourself.
• Encrypted storage — all data at rest is protected with ZFS native encryption.
• No shell history — operator sessions leave no command history on the server.
• Headless server — eliminating physical access vectors.

Features

• HTTPS with HTTP/2 and HTTP/3 (QUIC)
• IPv4 and IPv6
• Per-domain Let's Encrypt certificates (ECC P-256), auto-renewed
• Hardened response headers: X-Content-Type-Options: nosniff, X-Frame-Options: DENY
• HTTP GET only — every other method is denied at the web tier
• Static HTML, no scripts, no third-party assets
• No charge, no signup, no API key

Infrastructure

• OS: FreeBSD
• Web server: nginx with HTTP/2 and HTTP/3 (QUIC)
• Filesystem: ZFS with native encryption
• Certificates: issued centrally on root.public-common.com via acme.sh, synced to this host with rsync
• nginx layout: one server block per parked domain, each pinned to its own certificate

Operator does not retain shell history, and the system has no remote console exposed to the public internet beyond the documented services.

Troubleshooting

The browser shows a certificate warning

Most often the DNS is pointed here but the certificate hasn't been issued for that name yet. Issuance happens on the next ACME loop after the request — wait a few minutes and reload, or email to confirm.

The page loads from one network but not another

Usually your AAAA record is set but the host is reaching us over a broken IPv6 path (or vice versa). Check both dig A and dig AAAA for your domain, and that both addresses match the values under DNS Setup.

I see a different site at the IP

The host serves many domains from the same IP — nginx routes by SNI / Host header. Reach the IP directly without an SNI and you'll get a default response, not your domain. That is normal.

HTTP/3 doesn't connect

Some networks block UDP/443. The site falls back to HTTP/2 over TCP/443 automatically; nothing to do.

My old hosting still shows up

DNS caches. Wait for your previous record's TTL to expire, or flush the resolver you're testing from.

FAQ

Acceptable Use

• Park your own domains, not domains you don't control.
• Don't use the parking page as part of a phishing or malware infrastructure. Such domains are removed without notice and reported.
• Don't try to wrap arbitrary content through the parking host (frames, redirects, JavaScript shims) — the page is static and there is nothing to wrap.
• Abusive sources may be rate limited or blocked without notice.

Other Projects

public-common.com Management node

public-adns.com Public authoritative DNS service

public-rdns.com Public recursive DNS service

public-blank.com Public static / parking service

public-repo.com Public mirror service

public-utc.com Public NTP / NTS time service