How to Make a DNS change

DNS stands for domain name system and makes the Internet go round. DNS does the work of translating a domain name to an actual Internet routable address. If you have a domain name it is important to understand DNS so that you can make quick and accurate domain name changes anytime your web or mail host changes their ip address.

Difficulty: Moderate

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Login to your domain name registrar

1. Go to your domain name registrar's web page (e.g. networksolutions.com, godaddy.com, etc) and log in. If you have forgotten where you registered your domain, you can go to domains.whois.com and do a whois lookup on your domain, which will tell you where it is registered.

2. 
    

   Your domain registrar provides a web interface for you to make changes to your domain name's dns record. Usually this is called "domain control", "domain manager" or "total dns". After you have logged in, find your registrar's domain management section and select the domain name you need to make changes to. Different registrar's will have different web interfaces, but it will look similar to the one shown here.

3. 
    

   Once you have your registrar's dns management screen, you should see sections that correspond to your domain name's dns record like A, MX and CNAME record. The A record corresponds to your web host's ip address, while the MX record stands for mail exchanger and represents the mail server that routes email for your domain. A CNAME record is an alias and helps you forward traffic for one domain to another domain. Determine which one you need to change. If your web host has updated your ip address, then you would change the A record. If your email host has changed their ip address, then you would need to change the MX record.

4. 
    

   Click the edit button next to the record you need to modify. In the host name section, put your domain name or the character "@" which stands for your domain name. If this is an A record change, put your new ip address in the "points to ip" field. For an MX change, you will put a mail server address provided to you by your email host, like mail.networksolutions.com. Enter the priority given to you by your mail host as well. The TTL field stands for "Time to Live" and should be a low number.

5. Save your changes and log out. Note that dns changes can take up to 48 hours to propagate and during the change, some name servers may point to your old address while others point to the new.

Tips & Warnings

• DNS changes can affect your email services so be sure to coordinate with any email users of your domain before making changes.

Resources

• How to manage a Domain Name