DNS propagation time est?

I know once you register a domain it can take 1 to 2 days to resolve to your DNS server

I was wondering how much time can be expected when you change the DNS record for a domain?

for example, i had a subdomain pointing to localhost apache

i updated the dns record to point to a remote apache server in the IN A file.

How much time would i expect before browser searches will resolve to the new site location?

is there a way to force it ?


~justin

It depends on how you had the DNS setup for the domain before. There is a spot in your DNS which will tell how long someone will cache your dns before querying your server again. I think the default is 1 day (86400 seconds). So if you changed your domain's dns it could take up to 24 hours to change. Now if you had your dns setup so that a domain would cache for a max of like 5 min, then whenever you change your domain it wouldnt take very long at all to propagate. However if you do this there would be more resources requested by your server as many more people would be constantly querying your dns. Google actually does this. They set their DNS to expire in about 5 min, which means when you search google you are probably querying a different datacenter after 5 min has passed. Anyway to to find the answer to your question you need to look up in your DNS the TTL (Time to live) for your domain name, and you should know exactly how long it would take to propagate.

$TTL 604800
@ IN SOA ns1.brahh.com. dns.brahh.com. (
2003071104 ; Serial in ccyymmddxx format
10800 ; Refresh after 3 hours
3600 ; Retry after 1 hour
604800 ; Expire after 1 week
86400 ) ; Minimum TTL of 1 day
;
; Name server(s)
;
@ IN NS ns1.brahh.com.
@ IN NS ns2.brahh.com.
;
; localhost
;
localhost IN A 127.0.0.1
;
; mail
;
@ IN MX 10 mx1.brahh.com.
@ IN MX 20 mx2.brahh.com.
;
; computer names
;
@ IN A 68.48.165.230 ; for URL without the www prefix
www IN A 68.48.165.230 ; the dub dub dub server
sball IN A 63.217.142.5 ; the dub dub dub server
softball IN A 63.217.142.5 ; the dub dub dub server
test IN A 63.217.142.5 ; softball extension
ftp IN A 68.48.165.230 ; the ftp server
pop IN A 68.48.165.230 ; incoming mail server
smtp IN A 68.48.165.230 ; outgoing mail server



Does anyone see why when i dig softball.brahh.com it goes to 68.48.165.230, yet sball and test both point where i want it to be going???

Well the ones that are pointing to the correct places, are those new subdomains you have made? and the ones that are not pointing to the correct places, are those old subdomains that are still pointing to their previous address?

According to your record there you have a TTL of 604800 which is exactly 7 days or a week.

AHA

Ok, when i point my DNS record to a new sub-domain location ( on a different server) Do i want to point the ip to where it will actually reside? or the IP address of the base machine itself??

i.e. The webserver ip is 63.217.142.4
i am going to make test.brahh.com as a virtualhost on 63.217.142.162 ... do i point it to the .162 or .4 from my dns?

thx J

For the "A-record" on test.brahn.com you would point it to 63.217.142.162 since that is the IP address the actual site resides on -- brahn.com should already be pointed to your dns server from your registrar which would be 63.217.142.4. So whenever anybody looks up a subdomain of brahn.com it first contacts your dns server on 63.217.142.4 and your dns server will say "hey visitor, contact 63.217.142.162 if you want to see subdomain.brahn.com"

this is really turning into a cluster F^&*% hehee, i guess ihave things cached in various places, but between

test.brahh.com
sball.brahh.com
and softball.brahh.com

they seem to be pointing to random things at random times

are any of these residing correctly? the last octet should be 162 or 161, i ahve them all pointing to the remote webserver, wehre i have tried 3 diff locations to get something up and running.

ihave the following lines in my httpd.conf file on the remote machine:
<VirtualHost 63.217.142.161>
ServerName test.brahh.com
DocumentRoot /usr/local/apache/www/willysbirthday.com/sball
</VirtualHost>

<VirtualHost 63.217.142.162>
ServerAdmin webmaster@softball.com
DocumentRoot /usr/local/apache/www/softball
ServerName softball.brahh.com
ErrorLog logs/softball.com-error_log
CustomLog logs/softball.com-access_log combined
</VirtualHost>

------- and in my db.brahh file ------

www IN A 68.48.165.230 ; the dub dub dub server
sball IN A 63.217.142.162 ; the dub dub dub server
softball IN A 63.217.142.162 ; the dub dub dub server
test IN A 63.217.142.161 ; softball extension

Looks fine, the only thing is I do not see an entry in your httpd.conf file for

sball.brahh.com

when i dig the diff sub domains posted above, sball (i.e. the only one NOT added to the remote httpd.conf) si the only site showing up with the actual IP that i am expecting from the IN A list...


when i surf to the sites i get a stupid porno pop up which i don't know where is coming from, if i go to the specified IP addresses, the words test come up on the screen, and i have never seen this file before in my life, i can't even find it on the server..

Could there be some configuration i'm overlooking? I feel like i have exhausted every combination of things in the universe to get this crap to resolve correctly

*sigh*

~j

First off when you do a dig on a domain, it has nothing to do with how you configure stuff in Apache. If the dig isn't right for some of your domains, then you either do not have the dns setup right, or you aren't pointing the domains to your nameserver from your registrar, which might make another dns server have authority over yours.

When you do the dig, is it saying its getting the results from your nameserver?

I guess the dig had some delay to get up and running correctly. Everyhting appears to be pointing at the correct IP.

however, once it gets to the remote host, it is not resolving to the directory correctly...

I have this record on the httpd.conf file of the remote host:
<VirtualHost 63.217.142.162>
ServerAdmin webmaster@softball.com
DocumentRoot /usr/local/apache/www/softball
ServerName softball.brahh.com
ErrorLog logs/softball.com-error_log
CustomLog logs/softball.com-access_log combined
</VirtualHost>

when i browse to softball.brahh.com i get a webpage that simply says "test"

when the /www/softball directory has no such file, Could directory premissions be causing this?

~j

Do you have any other virtual host directive with 63.217.142.162 in it? Also have you restarted your httpd daemon lately since you may have made some changes?

Also look in some of your other virtual host directives to see if you have ever listed softball.brahn.com anywhere.

YES - i do restart the httpd deamon, its a freeBSD machine i don't really know how to restart apache so i just reboot the machine as root (that should do it right? )

NO - there were no conflicting IP's

now i've got multiple thigns going, all which i expect to work, NONE WHICH DO. I'm curious, si there a file where you have to set up valid document root directories? cuz they are never goingthe right spot ::::


:: CASE 1 ::
<VirtualHost 63.217.142.162>
ServerAdmin webmaster@softball.com
DocumentRoot /usr/local/apache/www/softball
ServerName softball.brahh.com
ErrorLog logs/softball.com-error_log
CustomLog logs/softball.com-access_log combined
</VirtualHost>

// this is pointing to SOMETHING but its not in document root, vary strange


:: CASE 2 :: -i try to namevirtualhost

NameVirtualHost 63.217.142.155

<VirtualHost 63.217.142.155>
ServerAdmin webmaster@willysbirthday.com
DocumentRoot /usr/local/apache/www/willysbirthday.com
ServerName WillysBirthday.com
ErrorLog logs/willysbirthday.com-error_log
CustomLog logs/willysbirthday.com-access_log combined
</VirtualHost>

<VirtualHost 63.217.142.155>
ServerName test.brahh.com
DocumentRoot /usr/local/apache/www/softball
</VirtualHost>


test.brahh.com leads to willysbirthday.com, not softball

i'm very confused by this, i've been emailing the guy who actually owns this server, but to no avail as of yet.........

~j

Does the

/usr/local/apache/www/softball

directory actually exist? and if so did you check the files in that directory to make sure they simply aren't the same things that you have in the:

/usr/local/apache/www/willysbirthday.com

directory?

They both definetly exist. and the files are definetly destinct. Oddly, all the other virtualhosts in the httpd.conf work PERFECTLy.. Is it possible that the httpd.conf file i am editing is no longer is serving the box? (like it is done from another cpu in the network??)