Hello i have made some changes to my dns zone, changed mail server and added an alias for it.

I know the changes can take 48 to take place, which has expired and no changes.

My mail outsourcing company have a dns testing script which reports my changes ae being correct but says:

NOTE: You still have to change your DNS settings.

I have restarted named server, so what i am wondering is have i done everthing correctly?

I may just be impatient, and if this is so then ok, but i also want to make sure i have not missed something out.


cheers

Did you update the serial number in your zone files?

Did you only send your daemon the HUP signal?

Does your name server produce the correct IP when you type
host yourdomain.com

hi, thanks for reply.

do mean the top number in following? if so i did not but have now change last number from 2 to 3 and restarted named.

; Zone File for friendreunited.co.uk
@ 14400 IN SOA ns1.nameserver.net. root.ns1.nameserver.net. (
996484903
28800
7200
3600000
86400
)


what do you mean by:

"Did you only send your daemon the HUP signal? "


cheers

Originally posted by carpman
hi, thanks for reply.

do mean the top number in following? if so i did not but have now change last number from 2 to 3 and restarted named.

; Zone File for friendreunited.co.uk
@ 14400 IN SOA ns1.nameserver.net. root.ns1.nameserver.net. (
996484903
28800
7200
3600000
86400
)


what do you mean by:

"Did you only send your daemon the HUP signal? "


cheers

If you need to do something similar in the future, you might want to know that it is possible to lower the TTL value before the changes are made (that's the last number in the SOA sequence). This means that the changes will take place in a few minutes instead of 48 hours (or whatever it's currently set to).

Any time you modify your zone file, you have to increment the serial number (just as you now did). This is particularly important for the secondary server since the serial is what it looks at to determing if it should updates its own information.

The HUP signal for bind will force it to re-read the configuration and zone files without realling killing the process.

thank for replies, still waiting for changes.

so if i set the last SOA number, in this case 86400
to a lower it will update quicker? Would it be best to then change it back after changes have begun to occur?

How is this HUP signal sent? i have restarted named which is all i thought i needed to do.


cheers

Originally posted by carpman
thank for replies, still waiting for changes.

so if i set the last SOA number, in this case 86400
to a lower it will update quicker?

Yes, but you must do it in advance.

I.e. if it's set to 86400 - then it may potentially be 86400 seconds before all servers has updated. This means that 86400 seconds before you need to update something, you can lower this to something like 60 for example.

Then when you make the change, it will only take 60 seconds for other servers to catch up.

After the change is made, you can ofcourse set the TTL back to it's original value.


How is this HUP signal sent? i have restarted named which is all i thought i needed to do.


Restarting named is enough. Sending a HUP is just more "gentle".