Who controls the TTL of the DNS

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Posted by marsrc, 09-12-2008, 05:34 AM
Hi, A domain is currently pointing to nameservers of a 3rd party webhost. The domain was registered at Network Solutions. My client wants to move to a different webhost. I understand that I should update the TTL of the domain to 5 minutes, then wait until the current TTL elapses, before changing the nameservers. This is to avoid the long DNS propagation times. My question is: How do I update the TTL? Does that have to be done by the 3rd party webhost, because it needs to be done on THEIR nameservers? Because it's their nameservers that are handling the DNS lookups? Or can Network Solutions do something for me? I feel like this is a stupid question, but I don't mind feeling stupid Thanks
Posted by cristibighea, 09-12-2008, 05:43 AM
Yup, contact the host.
Posted by Xeentech, 09-12-2008, 06:53 AM
Theres no need to change the TTL to a lower (faster) value THEN change the records. That will not make any thing happen any faster. Just update the records with the new details and when end-users' caches, and ISP caches expire they'll hit the NS for the updated records.
Posted by lamerfreak, 09-12-2008, 09:47 AM
What XeenTech said. TTL drop won't help a lot for nameserver changes. Drop TTL, wait 2x previous TTL, change records, wait small time for propagation, change nameservers (if still required) any time after that.
Posted by Luxore, 09-12-2008, 01:55 PM
Whether you need to change the ttl on the dns, kind of depends on the way the website was built. Some sites, you can have two copies, one on the old server one on the new, and it really doesn't matter at all if for 24 hours or so some poeple use the old and others use the new. Other sites, ones with a single database that the owner wants updated with all visits or something like that, you need to have a cut date - some certain time when you really shut off the other site and start up the new one. Reducing the dns TTL can help you do that - it lets you control it so the address change reaches everybody at aproximately the same time. And yes, as someone else has already said, the TTL change gets made by whoever is managing the dns.