Confused about DNS? Leave it to the experts!
As an IT professional, and when you are dealing with the Internet and regarding where website, email and other services are pointing, you have to understand something called DNS (Domain Name Service).
To make a long story short, the DNS translates Internet domain and host names to IP addresses. DNS automatically converting the names we type in our Web browser address bar to the IP addresses of Web servers hosting those sites.
Here at DealerFire, we are making changes to DNS for clients and making sure the pointers are correct on a daily basis. This is typically only needed when provider of services (host) change, but it becomes critical to act swiftly when they do.
Normally, these changes are done at the top level, at the Name Servers. This is where DNS is managed for a domain. Once you make the appropriate changes, propagation immediately takes place across the internet and the changes are visible to the world. Now, in rare cases, we have had clients report that even several days after the DNS changes were made, everyone in the world can see the changes and their brand new automotive website, except for those within their own dealership.
Here’s what we do…
We contact the client and have them perform a few tests called ‘lookups’ to determine how DNS is resolved. In essence, finding what mechanism at the dealership is causing them not to pick up on the recent top level changes. After completing this process, the conclusion is invariably that they have their own local DNS server at the dealership with static entries answering to requests from local user’s computers, thus giving outdated information. We find this is the outcome in all cases.
At this point we suggest two solutions:
- Give the client correct IP addresses for website(s) and other services so they can manually edit their local DNS.
- Ask that they re-configure using DNS at top level (sometimes not always possible due to how their internal network is configured).
Either way, the resolution to this issue is always 100% the same and successful.
So when it comes to DNS and having any questions or concerns with its workings, leave it to us – the IT experts at DealerFire!
Written by Per A. Wihlborg, Systems Admin at DealerFire
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