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Sherif Buzz
Asked: 2010-10-20 02:42:52 +0800 CST

hosting IP change, how much downtime to expect?

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i'm moving my hosted site (same host) to a static IP, I understand there will be some downtime due to DNS caching - does anybody have any tips how to minimize this time and to avoid my users seeing "page not found?"

thanks in advance

domain-name-system ip static-ip shared-hosting

5 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    I'm assuming that you're referring to The DNS record that resolves to your web site address. If that's the case then here's my answer. It's slightly different from the answers alreay posted, and I'm not trying to start an argument with anyone:

    1. DNS records don't progagate, they cache. DNS is a pull technology, not a push technology.

    2. DNS records should be cached only for the TTL of the record in question.

    3. 99.999% of all DNS clients in the entire world (this includes web browsing clients and other DNS servers) won't have your web site DNS record in their cache. For these clients they'll get the updated information immediately because they'll have to perform a lookup for your web site's DNS record and will find the new information.

    4. The .001% of DNS clients that do have your web site DNS record in their cache will continue to use the old information until the TTL for the DNS record expires, at which time they'll perform a new lookup and get the new information.

    So for all intents and purposes you really don't have much to worry about. My suggestion would be to make sure the TTL on the record is reasonable (say 1 hour to 24 hours) and to change the record at a time you expect to have the least traffic, based on the TTL. For example: If the TTL is 1 hour and your site is not busy from midnight to 8 AM then change it sometime between midnight and 8 AM. If the TTL is 24 hours and the site is not busy on weekends then change it over the weekend, etc., etc.

    Also, as others are sure to point out, some DNS servers don't honor the TTL. There's nothing you can do about that. That's their problem, not yours. If DNS clients of those DNS servers can't access your site because they're caching the old information beyond the life of the TTL then it's their issue to resolve not yours. You can't account for every one off, errant, misconfigured, or otherwise faulty DNS client or server.

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  2. Tightly control your TTL values before the change. See articles such as:

    You may also want to leave a 302 redirect page on the existing IP address for a week or so.

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  3. The best/only way of minimising downtime would be to maintain both IP addresses for 48 hours, preferably on the same server, if your supplier will allow this.

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  4. should be minimal. Changing the dns server used in the control panel of your hosting service will take longer, typically 24 hours give or take a bit, but changing the IP pointed to by that dns server should be a very small time, although there might be a delay between entering it and the dns reloading. I think its about 15-30 mins on the DNS service i use.

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  5. Keep in mind that some browsers maintain their own DNS caches that are separate from the host platform's DNS resolver. See "Client Applications" in this PDF article by Simple Failover.

    Firefox has an addon available called "DNS Cache" which adds network.dnsCacheExpiration=0 to about:config, effectively enabling or disabling the feature on demand.

    For Internet Explorer, see How Internet Explorer uses the cache for DNS host entries.

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