JordanL
11-28-2007, 09:04 AM
Alright. It seems that MANY here don't seem to know the basics of website management, and it's really starting to bite us in the ass. Looking at TeaParty07.com for instance, the domain quit resolving this morning... a great time for that to happen considering that the debates are coming on later.
So, people don't seem to understand how these things work, and as a consequence, we have problems like this happening, which should not be happening. First, here's a basic breakdown of how domains work, and why they do and don't resolve.
When you type an address into your browser, it gets sent with a request to your Internet Service Provider. (That might be Comcast, AOL, MSN, etc.) All of the ISPs have giant servers which have nothing on them but a giant list which matches domain names to computer friendly server addresses. (IP Addresses, just like the ones your computer gets when it's online.)
Now when you register a domain, this address goes out immediately to a group of servers known as the root DNS servers. These servers aren't owned by any company or ISP. Instead they are managed by a pseudo-governmental agency known as ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers).
Now there are only 26 root DNS servers, and to put it bluntly, the internet would grind to a halt if every time a person wanted to visit a website they asked one of the root DNS servers. This is why all of the ISPs keep their own servers which handle this task then update their servers every 12 - 48 hours so that it's inline with the root DNS servers.
This is also why different people in different places are able to see a website at different times.
Now, anytime you make a change which needs to be stored in the root DNS servers, that change takes the same 12 - 48 hours to propagate. There are however changes which take effect immediately, and they have to do with where the change occurs.
Basically, most hosting companies keep their own "control" server at the front of their network as a kind of traffic director, so that when they submit the domain info to ICANN, it basically says, "oh, teaparty07.com? Yeah, talk to GoDaddy about that" and sends the users browser happily along to GoDaddy.
There the traffic control server looks at the request and more or less responds with "yeah, I keep that information on the server to your left". This is useful because if you want to change servers but don't want to switch off of GoDaddy, then you simply tell the traffic control server "hey, we moved that information to the server on the right", and instantly anyone coming in the door will know to go to the right.
With the teaparty07 website, it appears that they wanted to switch off of GoDaddy's hosting, which is overall a good move. The problem is that for the next two days, some people will be sent to the new location, and some will be sent to the old.
The only way to make THAT process painless is if for those two days, you host it at BOTH locations identically, then turn the GoDaddy version off after the switchover is complete.
Please, everyone out there, when you are making a website that others will depend on, make sure that you have someone helping you that is intricately familiar with these types of problems. I don't know if this is what happened with the teaparty website, but it seems likely.
I don't expect everyone to know how to run a professional and well thought website. But I do expect people to ask for help when they don't. This is more of a cautionary tale than one of reprimand, so don't go chastizing Trevor. It's just a good opportunity to illustrate how things can very easily go wrong when you aren't aware of the situation.
If this is what happened here, the single point of failure would be turning the GoDaddy site off before the new site was turned on. (Then again, it could be a tick of the actual GoDaddy hosting service and not a switchover, which would do a very good job of illustrating why you DON'T want to use budget hosts.)
So, people don't seem to understand how these things work, and as a consequence, we have problems like this happening, which should not be happening. First, here's a basic breakdown of how domains work, and why they do and don't resolve.
When you type an address into your browser, it gets sent with a request to your Internet Service Provider. (That might be Comcast, AOL, MSN, etc.) All of the ISPs have giant servers which have nothing on them but a giant list which matches domain names to computer friendly server addresses. (IP Addresses, just like the ones your computer gets when it's online.)
Now when you register a domain, this address goes out immediately to a group of servers known as the root DNS servers. These servers aren't owned by any company or ISP. Instead they are managed by a pseudo-governmental agency known as ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers).
Now there are only 26 root DNS servers, and to put it bluntly, the internet would grind to a halt if every time a person wanted to visit a website they asked one of the root DNS servers. This is why all of the ISPs keep their own servers which handle this task then update their servers every 12 - 48 hours so that it's inline with the root DNS servers.
This is also why different people in different places are able to see a website at different times.
Now, anytime you make a change which needs to be stored in the root DNS servers, that change takes the same 12 - 48 hours to propagate. There are however changes which take effect immediately, and they have to do with where the change occurs.
Basically, most hosting companies keep their own "control" server at the front of their network as a kind of traffic director, so that when they submit the domain info to ICANN, it basically says, "oh, teaparty07.com? Yeah, talk to GoDaddy about that" and sends the users browser happily along to GoDaddy.
There the traffic control server looks at the request and more or less responds with "yeah, I keep that information on the server to your left". This is useful because if you want to change servers but don't want to switch off of GoDaddy, then you simply tell the traffic control server "hey, we moved that information to the server on the right", and instantly anyone coming in the door will know to go to the right.
With the teaparty07 website, it appears that they wanted to switch off of GoDaddy's hosting, which is overall a good move. The problem is that for the next two days, some people will be sent to the new location, and some will be sent to the old.
The only way to make THAT process painless is if for those two days, you host it at BOTH locations identically, then turn the GoDaddy version off after the switchover is complete.
Please, everyone out there, when you are making a website that others will depend on, make sure that you have someone helping you that is intricately familiar with these types of problems. I don't know if this is what happened with the teaparty website, but it seems likely.
I don't expect everyone to know how to run a professional and well thought website. But I do expect people to ask for help when they don't. This is more of a cautionary tale than one of reprimand, so don't go chastizing Trevor. It's just a good opportunity to illustrate how things can very easily go wrong when you aren't aware of the situation.
If this is what happened here, the single point of failure would be turning the GoDaddy site off before the new site was turned on. (Then again, it could be a tick of the actual GoDaddy hosting service and not a switchover, which would do a very good job of illustrating why you DON'T want to use budget hosts.)