Anyway to test DNS entry before propogation?

[thecoalman]

Well I have everything set up on my site, everything running fine as far as I know via IP address. Just waiting on the DNS change to take affect after updating it at the registrar.

My question is, is there a way I can test the DNS is configured correctly before everyone starts coming to the site? I'm using plesk and from the literature it says this is automatically configured? I just want to make sure all my bases are covered so I don't have to go into panic mode if it doesn't work.

I'm fairly new to this but learning quickly, I found this tutorial for the local hosts file:

http://www.jaguarpc.com/support/kbase/747.html

I'm guessing that is only going to force windows to associate that IP with the domain name and not actually test the new DNS settings. Could this be changed to force it to use my new nameservers?

edit: yea I know I spelled propagation wrong, can't edit the title. :P

[Smithjp]

Two things need to be checked:

1) Nameservers are registered properly at Domain Registrar end. You can check this at your domain registrar.

2) DNS service is up and running on your VPS. DNS zone file is setup correctly and your Nameservers are responding when queried for the domain setup on your VPS.

Please open a support ticket and let the support know that you want to make sure that both these steps are done correctly and we will check it.

[Vin DSL]

Heh!

Nice avatar...

Smith is such a sweetie!

[thecoalman]

Well #1 i already take care of.

I'll do #2, thx.

[Daniel_DBS]

Heh!

Nice avatar...

Smith is such a sweetie!

vin... what exactly is it about smith that you like so much? or do i even want to know?

[thecoalman]

I feel at home, bunch of threadjackers around here. :lol:

[Daniel_DBS]

I feel at home, bunch of threadjackers around here. :lol:

haha i know.. we do tend to do that alot around here... we need to petition to get greg to add a thread jackers group

[jason]

I'm not a plesk user, but there is probably an interface somewhere in Plesk that will let you view the settings of your DNS zones (domain names). A quick eyeballing of that should tell you if there are any problems: check that A records (or CNAME records) exist for and domain names you need: www, mail, ftp, any custom subdomains, etc. and that they point to the IP address of your VPS.

Next, from a command line on your computer or in an ssh session try this:

P:> nslookup
> server ns1.yourvps.com
> www.yourdomain.com
> ftp.yourdomain.com
> server ns2.yourvps.com
> www.yourdomain.com
> ftp.yourdomain.com
> exit

Do lookups on any names that you are concerned with. (Change yourvps and yourdomain to appropriate names for your situation, of course.) Since ns1 and ns2 are actually the same server you don't need to check everything twice, the second check is more to ensure that nameserver responds than it is to ensure that it sends the correct information. After each request you'll get information back showing which IP address(es) the server knows as being mapped to the requested domain name. If calling the servers by name (ns1, ns2) doesn't work, use their IP addresses instead.

Resolving a domain name to your site requires more than just ensuring the nameserver returns the correct IP. You may also want to check the Apache config (most likely at /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf and/or in multiple files within /etc/httpd/conf.d/) to ensure that proper <VirtualHost> settings exist for your domains and that they map to the correct path on the server.

Again, I've never used Plesk, but control pannels are made to do this stuff quickly and easily. If they didn't get it all right 99.999999% of the time then they'd be out of business pretty quick, so you probably have nothing to worry about. Still, I'm like you, and understand why you want to be 100% certain before you flip the switch.

--Jason