Search the Community

With the TES Alliance website being moved to a new server, you may have heard things like "We're waiting for the DNS changes to propagate". You might also have noticed that the server move seems to happen faster for some people than others. What's going on? What on earth is a DNS? Doesn't moving a website to a new server happen instantly? Different Languages The root of the problem is that humans and computers prefer different languages. A human being would think of a web address as something like www.tesalliance.org. On the other hand, a computer sees a web address as something like 198.154.215.186 (known as an Internet Protocol, or IP address). So when you type www.tesalliance.org into your browser, something has to translate your instruction to 198.154.215.186. DNS - the Human:Computer Translator That something turns out to be a thing called a Domain Name Server, or DNS for short. Think of a DNS as being like a guy with an address book giving out directions. When you type www.tesalliance.org into your browser, your Internet provider will ask the local DNS for directions. The DNS will then reply "TES Alliance is at IP address 198.154.215.186! Go there now!" Sometimes the local DNS address book doesn't have an entry for the site you want to visit. So what it does is ask its neighbour. It keeps asking until it finds a DNS who knows where TES Alliance is located, and then copies the IP address into its own address book. All is well and good. We have a system where humans can type a web address into a browser, and the computer can translate it into an IP address, either by itself or with the help of some friends. Moving House When DarkRider moved TES Alliance to the new server today, an interesting thing happened. Not only was the website physically copied to a new location, the new location has a different IP address. All of a sudden, the address books of ALL the DNS's around the world have the wrong IP address for TESA! How does this correct itself? No problemo. TES Alliance has a primary DNS that tells the world "We've moved house! We are now at IP address 198.154.215.186!" Its new DNS neighbours will update their address books almost straight away and start spreading the word. Other DNS's will hear about the address change and start updating their address books as well. This process propagates around the world until every DNS that has TES Alliance in their address book has updated the IP address. This propagation process may take a few days to fully complete. And there you have it - that's the reason that moving a website doesn't happen as instantly as you would expect. And you can now sound like a geek any time you want by saying "TESA is waiting for the DNS changes to propagate."