How To Configure Website DNS Configuration Settings

How To Configure Website DNS Configuration Settings? This question will be answered throughout this article. Keep reading if you are curious about the answer.

It is not enough to type the domain name and press the enter key to visit a website. Behind the scenes, other layers are involved to protect your privacy and security while surfing online.

Internet requests from browsers cannot read domain names. Instead, they only understand the numeric IP addresses registered in these domains. A Domain Name Server , or DNS , is where browsers go to get the correct IP address associated with a domain.

Your website's DNS configuration settings allow visitors to access your site even after you move the site to a new hosting provider.

What are the website DNS configuration settings and how to configure them.

For most people, domain names are much easier to remember than a sequence of numbers. For servers and computers on the Internet, the opposite is true. A DNS server handles the translation so that both parties are happy.

Your home network will typically depend on a DNS server provided by the ISP for your own Internet router's IP address. You can actually change your router's IP settings to switch your DNS servers from automatic (set by your ISP) to something public like Google's DNS 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4.

A website's DNS settings are a bit different than that. Website DNS configuration settings are important for website owners. Each time you choose to change web hosts, you change the physical server the site is on. This also means that you change IP addresses.

Changing your DNS configuration settings to always direct people looking for your domain name to the correct IP address will keep the website up and running even when switching to a new hosting.

Most website owners should understand that if the DNS settings are entered incorrectly, the entire website may be down for a long time.

Keep in mind that DNS changes aren't instantaneous, so if you make a mistake, it's likely no one will have access to the site until your fix is ​​replicated to every DNS server on the internet. Even after fixing the error, it may take up to 72 hours for the fix to take effect.

Preventing DNS Misconfigurations

To prevent errors from occurring in the first place, make sure you have a basic understanding of what A , CNAME , NS , SMS , and MX records do.

• A – A record is also known as IPv4 address record. It is used to point the domain name to one or more IP addresses. If you use a managed hosting provider like WordPress.com and also use their nameservers, you won't need an A record.

• CNAME – This is the Canonical Name (CNAME) record. If you already have an A record, you won't use a CNAME. The CNAME record tells anyone visiting a subdomain to also use the same DNS records as another domain or subdomain.

• NS – These records are the name servers. Without it, your website will not work at all. You will normally have at least two of these records in your DNS configuration settings. If you've never changed yours, they probably look very generic, like ns1.name.com and ns2.name.co

NS records are stored by Romania 's Top Level ( TLD ), of which there are more than 1000. These are your .com, .gov, .net and other more common ones . The NS record has ultimate control over where domains are directed and redirected.

• MX – These are your Mail Exchange records. They are used to create email addresses from a domain. MX records will direct mail servers to accept incoming mail for your domain and where received emails should be routed to.

Although there are more records than you are likely to come across, these are the most important ones you should know.

Configuring DNS configuration settings

For this tutorial, we will be using Hostinger as our web host. Log in to your account and navigate to Domains , then the DNS Zone tab.

This is where you will find all your DNS records.

To edit any of these records, click the Add New + button located at the bottom right of any of them.

It really is that simple. To better understand what you're watching and how to edit it, let's use the A record.

the @ in your A record is your domain name, and Points to is the IP address. Changing this will redirect all traffic directed to your domain name to the IP address you entered. 

When moving to a new website management host, like from WordPress to SquareSpace, you need to change the Points to @ record using the IP address provided by SquareSpace.

When entering a hostname, it can be done in two ways:
Full hostname followed by a period – full.hostname.com or the full subdomain.

Let's say you want to redirect your WordPress domain to point to a Hostinger domain server. You can do it in two ways. The first and easiest is to change the nameservers of your domain name registrar.

The reason this method is recommended is that your DNS zone will automatically configure itself to match the hosting IP address. This method will also allow you to transfer control of your domain settings to the Hostinger hPanel.

This method can take up to 24 hours for DNS to fully propagate. The second method is more technical as you will need to point the domain name through an A record.

• You will need to change the IP address connected to the DNS records. This will keep control of your domain in the registrar. If you know for sure that the IP address will remain static, this process is not necessary.

• Next, log in to your domain registrar's control panel. If you don't know or forgot the company name, you can use whois lookup.

• In their version of the DNS zone, remove all values ​​from the nameserver fields and enter Hostinger's nameservers.

• then save changes.

This method can take up to 24 hours for DNS to fully propagate. The second method is more technical as you will need to point the domain name through an A record.

You will need to change the IP address connected to the DNS records. This will keep control of your domain in the registrar. If you know for sure that the IP address will remain static, this process is not necessary.

Edit the A record IP addresses and point your domain name to Hostinger. In most cases, this will require two A records for the domain – one with a www subdomain and one without.

An example would be if you had a domain named ilovecoffee.com and you wanted to point it to 212.1.212.65 as your IP address, you would need to create A record entries that look like this:

This may look different from your registrar. Just fill in the similar values ​​as shown in the image. The fields will be as follows – Name/Host, TTL and Points to/Save.

The average T ime T o L ive (TTL) value is 86400 seconds, or 24 hours. When it comes to what you need to set, look at the other registration entries. In this case, our DNS settings show 14400, or 4 hours. 4 hours does not exist in the Hostinger drop-down menu, so it is advisable to follow the average.

Once this step is complete, you can move on to editing the MX record for email. Of course, this step is only required if you are currently using the mail server offered by your host.

This process is simple.

1. Head to the MX record in the DNZ area and note the Points to field.
2. Take this address and replace your domain's destination MX record with Hostinger's MX address.

The only different field here from the A record is Priority. This field determines the priority of each server you have. The lowest number represents the highest priority. If you only have one server, it's best to put 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 be different depending on the host provider. Avoid making major changes without receiving 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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