So, I finally moved the hosting – the reasons and all that I would write in another post later on. However, the interesting thing was that while I changed the Name Server in the domain panel – the new NS would not propagate for over 7 days!
Everything was tried – the Domain panel of the reseller, the domain control panel of the reseller, re-setting the NS, writing to the PDR guys, repeated checking on some of the internet tools available for checking NS propagation. But it seemed that nothing would work. The NS would still show the older hosting NS.
Needless to say, I searched the internet for it – but couldn’t find any solution. Though the internet was replete with this problem of NS not propagating.
Finally, after much analysis – and this seemed quite unlogical to me – I asked the new Hosting providers to check parameters in their WHM as to what were the parameters in the NS in the DNS records of WHM (Web Host Manager). And my guess was correct. All trouble emanated from that point. These are defined in
WHM (Web Host Manager)
–> DNS Function
–> Edit DNS Zone
–> Select the particular domain & click on Edit
The issue related to the i3pep.org. When the hosting files were transferred, it had inherited the WHM records of the previous hosts. That was bit confusing to me. But my conjecture is, that this may be possible if at some point, with the previous hosts, the hosting was moved from one WHM to another, then ‘may be‘ the older records would continue to held in the archival files.
And when the hosting is moved to another host, the parameters held in those files would somehow (because I am not technical enough to speak as to how!) get inherited in the new host.
But finally, the issue was solved much to my satisfaction. And it is quite thrilling when one watches the propagation of Name Servers on the internet. Though it is said that it takes upto 24 hours for the propagation (my old hosting provider in a support ticket put it to 72 hours!), but in reality, if things are fine, it happens within three to four hours. For that matter one can check the NS propagation within a few minutes of changing of the nameservers – and it can be seen that the new NS has started registering. I use whatsmydns.net to check the propagation of DNS (screenshot below : within two hours).
So, it was another step of the learning curve in my experience of hosting of my websites.
One thing, that I found useful on internet is that if one is trying to shift hosting, and wants to check with the new hosting – as to how the site has been set up prior to DNS propagation, simply define the domain on the hosts file (in your computer) to the ip address of the new hosts viz. if suppose the new ip is 69.175.109.10 and the website is i3pep.org then in the hosts file write:
69.175.109.10 i3pep.org
69.175.109.10 www.i3pep.org
So, in this, even if the NS has not propagated, your computer would resolve the domain to the new hosts and one can test as to the new website (particularly in hosting transfer cases) has been set up properly.
I remember, some years back, in the hacking forums, it was prescribed to use the ‘hosts’ file to block adverts from the adware softwares! Thankfully, it seems that now the era of adwares has gone away. But the hosts file can also be put to good use in blocking unwanted websites as well – but then that’s off-topic for now!
Update: Another useful tool to check the live status of servers on which you are hosted is internetsupervision.com Here one can view the live status of the servers of one’s website. The view is both through text details as well as visually.
