While Waiting for DNS Records to Propagate

Most things I do happen instaneously. DNS updates don't.

Wait. I should tell some of the backstory.

I asked a not-hypothetical question last week (what, you didn't realize that I am Guy?) and actually wound up answering it myself. I'm installing and configuring a copy of CommuniGate Pro as my company's new mail server. Then I'm going to manage it. It's gonna be great.

Yesterday, I changed some of our DNS records using Bizland's (poorly documented) "Custom DNS" tool (for which we are now paying US$3.95/month) so that I'd have a subdomain to work with. This, in retrospect, was a Big Mistake, as the MX records got messed up. The upshot? No one in the office has received any email since yesterday evening.

Of course, every cloud has a silver lining: several people have told me that it's nice not having as much work to do. Meanwhile, I scrape through the sparse documentation at Bizland's website, trying to learn the seemingly secret locations of their SMTP servers so that I might fix the MX records.

Six hours after I began my quest, someone (who doesn't even work for Bizland, as far as I can tell) helped me. So now, my task accomplished, I sit back and wait for the DNS records to propagate.

The really ironic angle to the story is that, within another day, I'll probably be switching the MX records again, to point to the new mail server, but we need our old setup working now.