Visiting a website is more than just typing a domain name and hitting the Enter key. Behind the scenes, there are other layers of protection for your privacy and online security.
Internet requests from browsers cannot read domain names. Instead, they only understand numeric IP addresses registered in those domains. The Domain Name Server or DNS is where browsers go to get the correct IP address associated with the domain.
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Your site’s DNS configuration settings are what allows visitors to still access your site even after you move your site to a new hosting provider.
What are the website’s DNS configuration settings and how to set them up
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Domain names are much easier to remember for most people than a sequence of numbers. For servers and computers on the Internet, the opposite is true. The DNS server processes the translation to keep both parties happy.
Your home network usually uses a DNS server provided by your ISP to obtain the IP address of your own Internet router. In fact, you can change your router’s IP settings to switch the DNS servers from automatic (determined by your ISP) to something public, like DNS 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4 from Google.
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The website’s DNS settings are slightly different from these. The website’s DNS configuration settings are important to website owners. Every time you decide to change web hosting, you change the physical server that hosts the site. This also means that you are changing IP addresses.
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Changing your DNS configuration settings so that people looking for your domain name always point to the correct IP address will keep the website up and running even when switching to a new hosting.
Most website owners should be aware that if the DNS settings are incorrectly entered, the entire website may be down for an extended period of time.
Remember that DNS changes are not instantaneous, so if you make a mistake, it is likely that no one will be able to access the site until your fix has been replicated to all DNS servers on the Internet. Even after fixing the error, the fix will take effect within 72 hours.
Avoiding DNS Configuration Errors
Prevent DNS Configuration Errors
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First, to avoid mistakes, make sure you have a fundamental understanding of what A, CNAME, NS, TXT, and MX records do.
- A – The A record is also known as an IPv4 address record. It is used to point a domain name to one or more IP addresses. If you are using a managed hosting provider such as WordPress.com and also using their nameservers, you do not need an A.
- CNAME record is a canonical name (CNAME) record. If you already have an A record, you won’t be using CNAME. The CNAME record tells everyone who visits the subdomain to also use the same DNS records as the other domain or subdomain.
This kind of thing comes in handy when running multiple services from the same IP address. CNAME records only work for subdomains and should always point to a different domain or subdomain and not directly to the IP address.
- NS – These records are nameservers. Without them, your site won’t work at all. Typically, DNS configuration settings contain at least two of these entries. If you’ve never changed yours, they probably look very generic, like ns1.name.com and ns2.name.com.
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NS records are stored on a top-level domain (TLD) server, for which there are over 1000 of them. These are your .com, .gov, .net and other more common ones. The NS record has complete control over where domains are sent and redirected to.
- MX are your mail exchange records. They are used to generate email addresses from a domain. The MX records will instruct the mail servers to accept incoming mail for your domain and where to route the received emails.
While there are other records that you are likely to come across, these are the most important ones you should know.
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Setting DNS Configuration Options
Configure DNS Configuration Settings
In this tutorial, we will be using Hostinger as our web host. Log in to your account and go to the Domains section and then the DNS Zone tab.
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You will find all your DNS records here.
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To change any of these entries, click the Add + button located in the lower right corner of any of them.
It’s really that simple. To better understand what you are looking at and how to change them, let’s use the A
notation.
@ In your record, A is your domain name and Points to is your IP address. By changing this value, you will redirect all traffic directed to your domain name to the IP address you entered. When moving to a new website management host, such as WordPress to SquareSpace, you will have to change the dots on the @ records using the IP address provided by SquareSpace.
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When entering a hostname, this can be done in one of two ways:
The fully qualified hostname with a dot is full.hostname.com or the full subdomain.
Let’s say you want to redirect your WordPress domain to point to Hostinger‘s domain server. There are two ways to do this. The first and easiest way is to change your nameservers at your domain name registrar.
The reason this method is recommended is because your DNS zone is automatically configured according to the hosting IP address. This method will also allow you to transfer control of your domain settings to Hostinger hPanel.
- You will need to find the name servers in the DNS zone, which is in the NS section.
- Then log into your domain registrar’s control panel. If you don’t know or have forgotten the name of the company, you can use a whois search.
- In their version of the DNS zone, remove all values ??from the nameserver fields and enter Hostinger nameservers.
- Then save your changes.
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This method can take up to 24 hours for DNS to propagate completely. The second way is more technical, as you will need to specify the domain name using the A record.
You will need to change the IP address associated with the DNS records. This will keep the registrar in control of your domain. If you know for sure that the IP address will remain static, this process is unnecessary.
Change the IP addresses of the A record and point your domain name to Hostinger In most cases, this will require two A records for the domain – one with the www subdomain and one without.
For example, if you have a domain named ilovecoffee.com and you want to point it to 212.1.212.65 as its IP address, you would need to create A records that look like this:
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It may differ from that of your registrar. Just enter similar values ??as shown in the image. The fields will be Name / Host, TTL and Points to / Record.
Average Time to Live (TTL) is 86400 seconds, which is 24 hours. When it comes to what you should install, take a look at other entries. In this case, our DNS settings show 14400, which is 4 hours. There is no 4 hour value in Hostinger dropdown menu, so it is recommended to use an average.
After completing this step, you can move on to modifying the MX record for your email. Of course, this step is only required if you are currently using the mail server provided by your host.
It’s a simple process.
- Navigate to the MX record in the DNZ and notice the Points to field.
- Take this address and replace your domain’s destination MX record with Hostinger‘s MX address.
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The only thing different here from the A record is Priority. This field determines the priority of each of your servers. The lowest number represents the highest priority. If you only have one server, it is best to enter a number between 0 and 5 in the priority field.
For additional help and advice on DNS configuration settings, contact your web host. Many things, including access to DNS configurations, can differ depending on the host provider. Refrain from making major changes without help.
Once you get the hang of it, making changes to your DNS configuration settings can be a simple and painless process.
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