Pointing Name Servers - for new comers
Hi all
As usual I have been busy creating content for my blog and I always read WA blogs at the end of the day and see if there are any questions I can answer
One of the most popular questions seems to be about pointing name servers when bringing your website over to WA
When you point name servers there is a delay, this is called Propagation its the technical term for the time it takes the name servers to update
It used to take from 24 hour to 48 hours it now takes only a couple of hours or less
When you point your name servers the DNS (Domain Name Service) has to ping many other servers called top level domain name servers to update the new information about the new location of your IP Address and then the DNS can update your IP address to your domain name
The whole process is called dynamic DNS which just means that the DNS automatically updates when you point you name servers
Dynamic DNS is done by two server services
1. D.H.C.P = Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol.
2. D.N.S. = Domain Name Services.
These two server services talk to each other, D.H.C.P creates IP address and then talks to DNS and assigns an IP address to your domain
When you update your name servers, these two service have to ping many top level DNS servers, to tell all the other servers of the update which you have just made, so it can take a few hours, but it used to take a few days so things are getting better
Hope this helps to explain DNS a bit better for any body that's new here
Barry
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Thanks for sharing, this solve my curious why it take a few hours for WA host server to pick up my domain name which I transferred from Namecheap 2 days ago.
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Thanks Barry for this write-up.
I've a little problem here. A couple of hours ago, I bought a new domain name from a registrar outside WA. Then, I tried to point the new domain name to WA by placing "ns1.mywahosting.com" and "ns2.mywahosting.com" in boxes labeled "Nameserver 1" and "Nameserver 2", respectively, in my domain registrar's Domain Manager page.
When I clicked "Proceed", the following message appeared:
"IP address is required for Nameserver ns1.mywahosting.com"
Question: Where do you think I can find this "IP address" so that I can place it under Nameserver 1 to complete the process?
Thanks in advance for your help. :-)
I have never seen this before I would suggest contacting the support desk in your domain register
You should not have to do this as it should just point them straight away