I'm trying to set up a test site for our developers to test code before pushing up to our live site.

Does anyone have a step by step process on how to set up a test site? My test site keeps pointing to our live site and I'm trying working out what step I've missed.

Thanks for your assistance.

1. Did you create a subdomain (A Record) for your test site in your DNS manager? (if needed)

2. Did you wait at least 24 hours? (if yes to the previous question)

3. Did you create a vhost for your test site and restart your web server daemon (e.g. apache, nginx, etc)? (if yes to the previous two questions)

4. Is your vhost pointing to the correct directory housing your dev site files? (if yes to the previous three questions)

5. If no to the previous four questions, provide more detail about your setup: Web server daemon (e.g. apache, nginx, etc.), how you configured your dev site, configuration pertaining to your dev site, how you want the dev site configured. We have very little detail, so we can't provide a lot of detail to help you.

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Kris the Piki Geeker

Um....just curious, but what type of "developer" doesn't know how to setup testing vs live sites?

Maybe what they want is a QA site?

'test site' is a bit like 'web developer', it could mean so many things.

What for? The domain TTL applies to ISP caches only for existing domains, not for new ones. Also, NX is cached too so make sure Linode DNS manager publishes the changes before you try accessing it (does so every 15 minutes).

http://library.linode.com/dns-guides/configuring-dns-with-the-linode-manager
Right below where it lists Linode's name servers. I also remember being told the same thing when I first started using Linode. I remember thinking "Where's my site? I thought it updated every 15 minutes!" And I was told, "Not every ISP updates every 15 minutes, some take up to 24 hours."

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Kris the Piki Geeker

.. or you end up going through the wrong gate!

You don't need to wait for propagation with newly created records. You will get the resolution through iterative or recursive queries.

I know what "propagation" is, although that's a bit of a misnomer as it implies active propagation of new records instead of passive response to recursive requests which is actually the case:

www.example.com recursion:

1. Browser asks the OS for resolver, gets ISP's (or router, which in turn knows to recurse to ISP's)
2. .com is asked for authority on example.com, .com responds with domain registrar's NS
3. domain registrar's NS is asked for authority on example.com, it responds with Linode's NS (if you're using Linode, thatis)
4. Linode NS is asked for www.example.com, responds with a record (A, AAAA, ...)
5. The record is cached for TTL seconds by the resolver in step 1
6. The record is cached for certain amount of time by the browser and OS's own cache


Never in my life have I had to wait for any amount of hours for new domains to "propagate" to whichever ISP I was using. The ISP's can't cache domains they don't know about. Also, they must obey domain TTL or parts of the internet would break (think round robin DNS, or geolocation).

That said, I did have to wait for ISPs to clear up the NX cache in cases where I erroneously tried a domain before verifying it was made available by the authoritative NS. So yeah, if you try a new domain before the NS actually publishes it, you'll end up waiting.

Edit: also dyndns would never work if ISPs didn't check up unknown domains immediately.

Whenever I create a new A record, my ISP's DNS doesn't have it as soon as Linode's DNS publishes, my ISP updates every hour. So if I create a new A record that never existed before and Linode publishes it at 1:00, it won't be available until 2:00 UNLESS the clock on Linode's name servers is slightly ahead of my ISP's. However, if I create the A record in time for Linode's DNS to publish it at 12:45, I'm guaranteed to have it at 1:00 (considering my ISP doesn't have another one of their crazy goofs, always take into account laziness and arrogance of big business). One of my friends actually reported not getting my newly created A record until a full half hour after I got it, and he's on a different ISP. I was sitting there scratching my head and saying, "Well I can load it, it's displaying that stupid-looking HTML file I created for it...", then he suddenly said, "Got it! And yeah, that is kinda stupid...."

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Kris the Piki Geeker