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  1. #1
    Join Date
    Oct 2009
    Posts
    80

    Question Propogation Question

    I'm finding this quite hard to put into words so apologies if it doesn't make much sense.

    I have VPS A, VPS B and VPS C.

    On VPS A there is a cPanel account xyz.com.
    On VPS B there is a cPanel account subdomain.xyz.com

    For the sake of keeping the question simple, lets say that VPS C is a carbon copy of VPS B, but with a different host.

    The VPS A account of xyz.com has an entry in the DNS records pointing subdomain.xyz.com to the IP of VPS 2.

    This all works correctly and as it should.

    My question is: if I change the IP that it points to to VPS 3, how long is the propagation period? Is it the usual length of anything upto three days, or is it quicker?

    Thanks

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Apr 2011
    Posts
    74
    I believe and if I understood well that it depends:
    1. expiration times in your dns zone
    2. providers around the world and if they respect your times

    If all goes well the change will be almost immediate ( with low times in your records )

  3. #3
    Join Date
    Apr 2011
    Location
    Philippines
    Posts
    301
    It depends. Sometimes it propagate immediately, other's are slow and really takes time and patient. Just try to view the site using a proxy if you want.

  4. #4
    Join Date
    Oct 2009
    Posts
    80
    Thanks for the replies.

    Going from the loads and processes on VPS B and VPS C it looks like it has fully propagated

  5. #5
    Join Date
    Apr 2011
    Location
    Las Vegas, NV
    Posts
    1,643
    If you are just changing the IP address of the web server for that subdomain there is no propagation time. Your DNS server will make that information available immediately (on the next request that comes in).

    However, that's not to say that everyone will find you right away. A lot of ISPs have caching DNS servers that will retain the old info until the TTL (time to live) has expired.

  6. #6
    Join Date
    Feb 2005
    Location
    Australia
    Posts
    5,849
    Quote Originally Posted by ajonate View Post
    A lot of ISPs have caching DNS servers that will retain the old info until the TTL (time to live) has expired.
    And that's exactly what they're supposed to do.

    The key point here is that you're changing an A record for which the TTL is entirely under your control (not the case when you change nameservers). IIRC cPanel sets a default TTL of 14400 (4 hours) on A records but you can set that to whatever you want - I find values around 300 to 900 (5 to 15 minutes) work well when you want to be able to move reasonably fast.
    Chris

    "Some problems are so complex that you have to be highly intelligent and well informed just to be undecided about them." - Laurence J. Peter

  7. #7
    Join Date
    May 2006
    Location
    San Francisco
    Posts
    7,325
    Keep in mind that some ISPs ignore TTL values entirely, but that's not the norm.

  8. #8
    Join Date
    Mar 2007
    Location
    USA
    Posts
    5,274
    Yeah, what foobic suggested works great.

    Change existing A records TTL to something like 5 minutes. Then wait out the old TTL + 5 minutes (new TTL). Then you can change the A record to the new IP and it should switch over extremely quickly.
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