Whole DNS Update 20 minutes or 24-48 hours? Need Help Judging Bet!!!

Discussion in 'Site & Server Administration' started by RapidFire, Jun 21, 2008.

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  1. #1
    Hey guys I made a bet with a member here that an entire dns update requires 24 hours. I did this because he said my hosting smelled fishy because his site wasn't up yet when he changed his nameservers.

    Here is the conversation, DP please be the Judge. BTW this is his user id: bl4ckv1p3r



     
    RapidFire, Jun 21, 2008 IP
  2. zacharooni

    zacharooni Well-Known Member

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    #2
    zacharooni, Jun 22, 2008 IP
  3. argothiusz

    argothiusz Well-Known Member

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    #3
    It can take less than 5 minutes if it's a .COM .NET TLD
    Another way to to speed thing up is change the TTL on DNS ZONE. 100% possible to have all update within 20 minutes timeframe.
     
    argothiusz, Jun 22, 2008 IP
  4. joffer

    joffer Peon

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    #4
    It depends entirely on the ttl of the A record and what dns you are using. For example if some domain has a big ttl itll be cached for long time. If you are using some cool dns like opendns you can clear the cache from http://www.opendns.com/cache/ . So it can update even in 1 minute
     
    joffer, Jun 23, 2008 IP
  5. ninebean

    ninebean Peon

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    #5
    It depends on the set-up of the DNS server, I have known it to take 10 minutes or 4 hours.

    I haven't seen it take longer than 8 hours though.
     
    ninebean, Jun 23, 2008 IP
  6. xous

    xous Active Member

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    #6
    Hi,

    The time it takes for DNS to update is commonly called DNS propagation. It is difficult to accurately calculate exactly how long DNS propagation will take due to the way DNS works.

    This will greatly depend on the TTL values and the SOA values for the domain. Caching name-servers that ignore or mishandle the TTL values will also cause problems.

    It will also take longer if your friend was trying the site every 10 minutes to see if it was working yet because the recursive name-servers he is using for the domain will cache the result and then will use the old values until the TTL expires.

    In one rare occurrence a client was having trouble with customers in china viewing his old site because his domain was resolving to the wrong server. This turned out to be because the name-servers got blocked by "the great firewall of china" and his expiry value in the SOA was about a month.

    In general I usually tell my clients 24 - 72 hours unless the move is prepared for a week beforehand. (I adjust the TTL values and SOA if required)
     
    xous, Jun 23, 2008 IP