nslookup

Check the Status of DNS Changes with nslookup

Like a watched pot never boils, sometimes DNS changes seem to take forever to propagate. nslookup is a quick and easy way to check on the proverbial pot once you've made changes.

I recently needed to make some DNS changes on domains I manage. As is always the case, I made my changes, set the TTL as low as I can get away with, and then made myself ready for what always seems like an unbearably long wait. The time it takes for changes to propagate (for DNS Servers to clear out previously cached entries on your domains) is probably one of the most painful elements in Dev-Ops. It's like watching a pot boil--except, there's no pot and all you can do is hit reload on your website every 5 minutes. Did the changes work? Did everything go the way it's supposed to?