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DNS Propagation Checker

whatsmydns.net lets you instantly perform a DNS
lookup to check a domain name's current IP address
and DNS record information against multiple
nameservers located in different parts of the world.

San Jose CA, United States 65.99.225.132

Corporate West
Holtsville NY, United States 174.136.53.218
OpenDNS
Kansas City, United States 174.136.53.218
WholeSale Internet
Atlanta GA, United States 65.99.225.132
Speakeasy
Providence RI, United States 65.99.225.132
Verizon
Montreal QC, Canada 65.99.225.132
MetroOptic
Mexico City, Mexico
Total Play
Santa Cruz do Sul, Brazil
Claro
Paterna de Rivera, Spain 174.136.53.218
ServiHosting
Manchester, United Kingdom 65.99.225.132
Ancar B
Lille, France
Completel SAS
Diemen, Netherlands 174.136.53.218
Tele2 Nederland
Leipzig, Germany 65.99.225.132
Universitaet Leipzig
Cullinan, South Africa 65.99.225.132
Liquid
Kaliningrad, Russia 65.99.225.132
VimpelCom
Karachi, Pakistan 65.99.225.132
CubeXS
Ariyalur, India 174.136.53.218
Railwire
Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia 65.99.225.132
TPMNet
Singapore, Singapore 174.136.53.218
Tefincom
Nanjing, China 174.136.53.218
NanJing XinFeng IT
Seoul, South Korea 65.99.225.132
KT
Osaka, Japan 65.99.225.132
NIFTY
Adelaide SA, Australia 65.99.225.132
Telstra
Melbourne VIC, Australia 65.99.225.132
Pacific

Global DNS Checker - How

to check DNS propagation
whatsmydns.net is a free online tool that lets you
quickly and easily perform a DNS lookup to check
DNS propagation and see information of any
domain from DNS servers located in many
countries all around the world.

You can test changes made to new or existing

domains and see if they have been updated
correctly without the need to manually query
remote servers. This gives you immediate insight
into how users globally may be resolving DNS
records for your website, email or other online
service.

Many operating systems include DNS tools to

check DNS records manually for diagnosing
problems. However, using these tools can be
complicated and difficult to understand for non-
technical people which is why the
whatsmydns.net DNS checker was created to
help with quickly checking DNS propagation.

whatsmydns.net makes the process of

performing global DNS checks easy by
maintaining a range of DNS servers to perform
lookups with. These results are then parsed and
displayed on a map so that results are easier to
understand at a glance. Individual lookup results
can be seen in detail by selecting a server
location from the list or clicking on the map
markers once a search has been completed.

What is DNS and how does

it work?
The Domain Name System (known as DNS) is a
system used to convert a name (like
www.google.com ) into an IP address (like

192.168.2.1 ). These addresses are used by

computers to communicate with each other on

the internet. Most people find remembering
names much easier than numbers, so DNS makes
this process easy.

When you visit a website, your computer, phone

or tablet will first check your local DNS cache for
the corresponding IP address. If your device has
not recently looked up this website, then it will
need to ask your configured DNS server which
will forward the request on to the DNS server
responsible for managing the records. This
process is known as a DNS lookup request.

Once the IP address is known, it is stored locally

for a set period of time known as the Time To Live
(TTL) and used to speed up future requests.
Updated records will not be returned until this
time has expired, this can often be the cause of
why DNS changes do not appear to be working
right away.

What is DNS propagation?

DNS propagation is the term commonly used to
check the current state of DNS results globally
and is often asked about when changes made to
DNS zones do not appear to be working as
expected. This process can take from only a few
minutes, but often takes up to 48-72 hours and
sometimes longer.

While technically DNS does not propagate, this is

the term that people have become familiar with.
DNS requests are recursively forwarded and
looked up from the locally used resolver to the
authoritative name server on demand and then
cached to speed up future lookup requests. For
this reason, commonly used DNS servers of large
network providers located around the world have
been selected when performing DNS checks.

For popular websites, DNS results may be cached

for people in different parts of the world using
many different recursive DNS resolvers. If you
have recently made changes to your
configuration, and the TTL has not yet expired,
then some people may be receiving out of date
results which could mean that they see an older
version of your website.

How long does DNS propagation

take?
How long DNS propagation takes usually
depends on your records TTL setting. This can be
anywhere from several minutes up to 48-72
hours or longer. However, there are sometimes
other reasons for a long propagation time.

The main issues as to why DNS propagation can

take so long are:

DNS Cache - The Time to Live (TTL) is the

duration in which DNS data is allowed to 'live' in
the cache of a local device or DNS resolver. When
this duration expires, the local device or server
removes existing DNS information and carries out
another DNS lookup to fetch new information.
Higher TTL settings can often cause a delay in
DNS propagation.

Internet Service Providers - Your ISP also

caches DNS results, which allows for many users
to access sites faster. For every website
requested, they will ask the DNS server
responsible only once but return the same result
for many users. Some ISPs also overlook TTL
rules, keeping a cached DNS record even if the
TTL has expired. This can make DNS propagation
take longer than it should.

Other DNS Servers - You may not be using your

ISPs DNS server, if this is the case then the same
issues that may be causing delays can still apply.

Domain Name Registrar - When changing web

hosting or DNS providers for your domain, it is
often also required to update your authoritative
name servers. These changes will need to be
reflected in the corresponding TLD nameserver
for your domain name. For example, if you were
to change the NS records for example.com, then
the .com TLD nameserver would also need to
update which can cause delays in DNS
propagation.

How do you speed up DNS

propagation?
A technique used to speed up DNS propagation
and prevent a delay is to lower your DNS records
TTL a few days in advance of making any
changes so that when the change is made any
old records expire more quickly. Unfortunately,
most people who are having issues and trying to
speed up DNS propagation only find this out after
making changes and are wondering why they're
not seeing instant results.

If you have checked DNS globally, and are seeing

different results locally then you may consider
flushing your DNS cache, or using another DNS
server. As a last resort, manually overriding your
local DNS entries in your systems hosts file can
also be done but should be considered a
temporary measure and only works for certain
record types.

What server types are used

in a DNS check?
There are 4 different types of DNS servers
involved when performing a DNS check. Each has
a different role and may not be needed at all
depending on the situation, having all these
different server types is what contributes to DNS
propagation issues.

Recursive Resolver - The DNS server your

device communicates with is called the recursive
resolver and is issued to you automatically by
your ISP, but can be also configured on your
router or individual devices. These DNS severs
are ideally located in close geographical proximity
to return results as fast as possible. These
servers will cache a copy of the DNS results to
speed up future DNS lookup requests.

Root Name Server - This type of DNS server is

responsible for returning the IP address of the
TLD (Top Level Domain) nameserver. For
instance, if it is trying to resolve example.com,
the root name server returns the IP of the TLD
name server that runs .com domains.

TLD Name Server - This name server returns the

authoritative name servers for each domain under
the Top Level Domain it's responsible for. The
.com TLD name server will return results for
example.com but not example.org.

Authoritative Name Server - This stores DNS

servers' configuration data for specific domain
names.

What happens when a DNS

request is made?
Below demonstrates the flow of events when a
user requests to visit www.example.com in their
web browser for the first time and does not yet
have cached results. As you can see, each step
introduces the possibility of a DNS propagation
delay.

1. → You type www.example.com into your web

browser.
2. → Your device sends a request to your
configured recursive resolver.
3. → The recursive resolver asks the root
nameserver for the IP address of the TLD
nameserver responsible for .com domains.
4. ← The root nameserver returns the IP
address of the .com TLD nameserver to the
recursive resolver.
5. → The recursive resolver asks the .com TLD
nameserver for the address of the
authoritative nameserver responsible for
example.com .

6. ← The .com TLD nameserver returns the IP

address of the authoritative nameserver to
the recursive resolver.
7. → The recursive resolver asks the
authoritative nameserver for the IP address
of www.example.com .
8. ← The authoritative nameserver returns the
IP address of www.example.com to the
recursive resolver.
9. ← The recursive resolver returns IP address
of www.example.com to the browser.
10. → Your browser makes a web request
directly to the resolved IP address.

Which DNS record types

can be checked?
You can check DNS propagation for common
record types including:

A - The most common DNS record, used to

point a domain to an IP address.
CNAME - Also known as alias records, they
point to other DNS records. Sometimes used
for subdomains like www.
MX - Mail Exchanger records are used set
email servers and their priority.
NS - Name Server records store the
authoritative nameserver.
TXT - Text records are commonly used for
configuration settings such as SPF and DKIM
records.

Additional types that can be checked which are

usually used in more advanced configurations
include: AAAA, CAA, PTR, SOA and SRV.

Make sure to check all your

DNS records
When checking DNS records, there are often
multiple record types that you need to verify are
correct. For example, websites sometimes
include www or other subdomains as either an A
or CNAME record, and email servers use the MX
record type.

Check
Check
Another
or Another
Record Type
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