Question

How to point DNS to Droplet

Posted on September 11, 2020
DNS Networking
Asked by 24326124313024706c61742e337332

I created a Droplet which I can access using the IP. I also create a domain name for the droplet test.mydomain.com. Digital Ocean added 3 NS entries, and I added another A entry sending test.mydomain.com to the droplet IP. Then I logged in to my registrar and added a CNAME sending test.mydomain.com to ns1.digitalocean.com

I’ve waited a few hours for propagation but still the browser can’t load the page. If I do dig on the command line I see it resolving to the nameserver but not the actual droplet IP. Not sure if this is incorrect or how it should be.

How do I get the DNS entry to load the Droplet hosted app in the browser ?

I don’t want to hardcode the Droplet IP in my registrar as an A record in case it changes in the future.

Submit an answer

This textbox defaults to using Markdown to format your answer.

You can type !ref in this text area to quickly search our full set of tutorials, documentation & marketplace offerings and insert the link!

These answers are provided by our Community. If you find them useful, show some love by clicking the heart. If you run into issues leave a comment, or add your own answer to help others.

alexdo

Site Moderator

• September 11, 2020

Accepted Answer

Hello, @hemorej

If you want to point test.mydomain.com to your Droplet you need to adjust the A record and point it to the IP address of your droplet. If you’re using external nameservers (different from ns1.digitalocean.com) you need to make the DNS change from where you active DNS zone is. This can be your registrar or any other hosting provider you use as well.

All DNS changes might take up to 48 hours in order to fully update. This is due to ISP DNS cache and general DNS propagating as well. This usually happens a lot faster but will still take at least few hours to fully update.

You can monitor the DNS propagation with any website like https://www.whatsmydns.net/ just select the desired record type and then click the Search button. It will show you a DNS record check from various points around the world. This will help you to see if there is a DNS misconfiguration or if it’s just the DNS slowly updating.

You can also use our DNS tool as well:

https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tools/dns

Hope this helps! Regards, Alex