New Website - DNS Settings
 

O.K., I registered a website for the first time this morning.

Right now I am waiting for the "domain to be resolved" (whatever that means)

Anyway, they send me an e-mail that says this:

If you placed an order with us for bittybar.com please note you need take no action as this email is for your information only, once your new ordered domain name bittybar.com has resolved these email messages will cease.
If how ever you are the administrator of your own domain you will need to amend the DNS settings on bittybar.com to the servernames below.
Please check and make sure your domain name is pointed to the following nameservers:

Then they list, I am guessing, primary and secondary DNS settings.

Can anyone translate this into normal english?

Where would I apply these settings?

Thanks for the help, in advance.

Well, you have to register your hostname with DNS servers - either whoever is hosting the server would have to register it with their DNS servers, or if you're hosting it yourself, register it with your DNS servers.

Then go to the page where you registered it and there should be places to enter the IP addresses of the DNS servers, so that the global internet knows where to look for the IP address of your website.

Your website is not "bittybar.com". It's actually a number like 32.229.32.183. Because a number like this is hard to remember we use names like "bittybar.com"

A DNS (short for Dynamic Name Server) server remembers that the site "bittybar.com" really points to 32.229.32.183.

For redundancys sake there are many DNS servers. Before your website can be tracked to the name "bittybar.com" all the DNS servers must be told, this takes a while.

To use your website you must have it hosted somewhere. Then you must tell the registrar your host namer servers addresses.

I have a hosting account. If your site will be low volume, pm me. I'll host it for free for ya ;)

Ibis,

I am paying a monthly fee to have them host my website (so much bandwidth per month, etc.)

Shouldn't they be taking care of this DNS stuff?

Thanks to both for the other info, but I still feel a little confused. Why am I apying these guys?

If you had them register the domain for you (as part of the hosting package for example), then they will take care of the DNS settings. The waiting period for DNS resolving is about 24-48 hours.

Like ibis said, the DNS servers synchronize their data with each other every so often. Your domain will propagate through the DNS servers using those synchronisations.

You are paying these guys for the use of their servers, bandwith and administration tasks. They take the responsibility of your hands. If something goes wrong it's their problem and not yours, and for that service they're paid....

Got it, thanks.

I got a little confused when they said:

"Please check and make sure your domain name is pointed to the following nameservers:"

It made me think that I neede to take care of this step.

That's why it was preceded by this line:
;)

But indeed, things get a little confusing at times... If your domain doesn't work after 48 hours, give them a call and they should help you along.

edit: the domain seems to work fine from here, but there is no page there yet.

thanks guys.

Everything is working fine.

Few notes to chip in:
DNS = Domain Name System, not Dynamic Name Server.

Also, it's not the case that the "DNS propagation" sends out the "bittybar.com = 123.123.123.123" to everyone, but rather it sends out "if you want to know the IP of bittybar.com, look at 12.12.12.12 or 23.23.23.23" - which lets you make changes at your DNS server and (depending upon caching) affect the world quickly.

Either way, DNS is a rather confusing subject - so if you've got any more questions, feel free to ask. :)
Note: If I made any mistakes about the innards of DNS, I'll feel like a real ass now, so I hope I didn't ;)

Thanks! That was a big help

/still confused

jk

but, everything is working like I hoped it will.