 Alright, so once again, hello everyone and welcome to today's online workshop. The topic we'll be looking at today is, what is the domain name system? So, yeah, whoops. So, I am Ben. I was born in Australia but I've lived pretty much my entire life in Japan. So, I am bringing this to you today at 9am Japan time. I've been a WordPress user since 2014, so just about nine years now. And this year I was selected as a representative for the WordPress training team. So, the WordPress training team, we create and maintain the learn.wordpress.org website and I represent that team to the larger WordPress project. So, yeah, that's what I'm working on today. William, I saw you, I'm new to, did you have a question? No. What is an online workshop? So, online workshops are a place where participants can learn together and be provided by volunteers in the WordPress training team. So, I'm volunteering to produce this online workshop and if you're interested in producing online workshops, you are welcome to do that as well. Come join the WordPress training team and we will get you started with that. These are places where we learn together. So, I don't presume I know everything. There's always something new we can all learn. So, feel free to ask questions in the Zoom chat at any time and anyone can answer each other's questions. I can answer questions, but also participants can answer each other's questions too. And yeah, if you're interested in learning more about WordPress, come visit the WordPress official education website at learn.wordpress.org. And this would actually be a good place for me to share the link to my slides so that everybody can follow along with me. Just a moment. Here we go. For today's slides. All right, I've dropped that in the Zoom chat there. Let me go back to full screen mode. So, let's start with a question. And I'd like everybody to type their answer in the chat here. How familiar are you with the domain name system? This is often abbreviated DNS. So, on the scale from one to five, one is I've never heard of it so that's the very first time I'm learning about the domain name system and five is I consider myself an expert. So, from one to five, how familiar are you with the domain name system? Oh, good. We have a few threes, three and a half, a four, a three, a five. Eric, great. If we have questions, everybody with Eric. Okay, we have a pretty good crowd here today. Everybody has a fairly good understanding about the domain name system. I would consider myself about a four. So, yeah, hopefully there's still something new. I want to make it go full screen rather than meeting just part of it. Sorry, could you say that again? Okay, so if you missed the last session about domains, there's a link here to the recording. Last time we talked about just basically what is a domain. So a domain is a string of text that corresponds to an IP address. So computers or devices on the internet call each other by their IP address names and domains are a text that are easier for humans to remember. So why does a site need a domain? A domain helps people remember and locate your website. So last time we talked about how you could actually type an IP address in your browser to access different services. But it's just difficult for humans to remember long strings of numbers. And so domains are easier for us to access websites and services. So for example, the IP address 198.143.164.252. If you type this in your browser, that will take you to the WordPress.org website. But rather than remembering that, we just type WordPress.org because that's more explanatory of what the site is. And yeah, the same thing for Google.com. You could type this IP address, but by typing Google.com, your browser and your computer transfers that into the IP address and pulls up the site for you. We also had a look at the different parts of the domain. So the section at the far right here after the final period, this is called the top level domain. And then the further left you go, you have a second level domain, a third level domain, a fourth level domain, etc. The top level domain is the most general part of the domain. And the further left you go, it gets more specific. So what we'll be talking about today is, first of all, how does the domain name system work? Second is what are DNS records? Third point, where can I edit my domain's DNS records? The fourth one, what DNS records do I need for my site? And finally, what is domain record propagation? So we have a lot of content to get through. And I will pause at the end of each of these sections for questions. So feel free to type whatever you want to ask in the Zoom chat. And I will get to them at the end of each of those sections. All right. Any questions about all that before we get started? James, okay, now I need to drop myself down to a two based on that list. That's fine. Drop yourself down and then you can come back to a four by the end of the session. But yeah, if you have any questions along the way, do ask. All right. So let's dive into it. This first section is the meatiest part of today's presentation. So how does the domain name system work? So just a quick refresher. The internet is a complicated network of devices. So of course we have our personal computers and our phones that connect to the internet. But there are also other devices. For example, you have web servers on the internet. You have like routers and hubs. And these days you also have like household appliances like refrigerators, microwaves and lights and doors and locks. And all these devices are connected on the internet. And these devices communicate with each other. So the internet is just information going between devices, devices talking to each other. It's actually like a really loud food called a cafeteria where all these machines are just constantly talking to each other. And the conversation does go something like this. So for example, the computer connects to the blue server over here. And he says, I'm trying to find the WordPress website. And the blue server says, sure, the server over there, the orange server over there has the information. And so your computer connects to the orange server and says, hi, I'm trying to find the WordPress website. And the orange server says, sure, I have the data. Let me send that over. And your computer says thanks. And so information goes between devices like this. But in reality, they don't call each other the blue server or the orange server. Each server has a name. And this name is a list of numbers called an IP address. So for example, if I were to connect to the blue server and say, I'm trying to find the WordPress website. The blue server would respond and say, sure, it's on server 188.143.164.252. So I asked for the WordPress.org domain website. And the blue server sends back an IP address to me. And that is the domain name system transferring the main domain into an IP address. And so I'm going to break this down even further to see how this happens. So this is the overview. You don't have to read all that right now. I'm going to go through that step by step. But this is to just show you the domain name system is a little complicated and there are multiple servers involved in this. But let me explain this one at a time. William, I see your question. So I'll get to that at the end of this section. Just a moment. All right. So when we start off, when we open our computer, open a browser, we type in a domain. For example, WordPress.org. And we type enter. Now, in the beginning, your computer does not know the IP address for WordPress.org. And so what your computer does is it connects to what is called a DNS resolver. The DNS resolver's job is to change a domain name into an IP address. So your computer just asks DNS resolver says, I don't care what you do. Please tell me the IP address for WordPress.org. Now, the DNS resolver doesn't know what the IP address is either. However, the DNS resolver has a list of what are called DNS root name servers. Now, DNS root name servers are the top most level in the DNS system. So there are about a dozen of these around the world. And DNS resolvers all over the world know the IP addresses for DNS root name servers. So these are recorded inside the DNS resolver. And so what the DNS resolver does is it connects to the closest DNS root name server to it. Usually, it's usually the geographically closest DNS root name server. And it says, I'm looking for the IP address for WordPress.org. Now, the DNS root name server doesn't record the IP address for domains. Instead, the DNS root name server records the IP addresses for what are called the TLD name servers or top level domain name servers. So in the case of WordPress.org, the top level domain is the final .org. So other top level domains could be .com or .blog. Or you have country code top level domains like .jp, .mx, .au, etc. For each of these top level domains, there is just one TLD name server in the world that contains all the records for that top level domain. So for the .org domain, there is just one top level domain name server for all the .org domains in the world. So the DNS root name server, the server shown in orange on the slide here, it records the IP addresses for all the TLD name servers for all the domains. So there are hundreds of TLD domains and the DNS root name service responsibility is to record the IP addresses for each TLD name server. So going back to the DNS resolver, the DNS resolver has contacted the DNS root name server and says I'm looking for WordPress.org. The DNS root name server says you will want to connect to the .org TLD name server to find that information. Here is the IP address for the .org TLD name server. So the DNS resolver receives that IP address and next it connects to the .org TLD name server and says I'm looking for the WordPress.org IP address. Could you tell me? Now, the TLD name servers, they don't actually contain the information about each domain, or sorry, the DNS records for each domain. Instead, they contain information for what is called the authoritative name server for each domain. So the authoritative name server is basically where you would log into to edit your DNS records. So if you own a domain, you would log into somewhere to update your DNS records. What you are logging into is your authoritative name server. And the top level domain name servers have a list of what the authoritative name server is for all the domains it manages. So there are probably thousands of .org domains in the world. The .org TLD name server has the IP address for each authoritative name server for all the .org domains. All right, so the DNS resolver has contacted the TLD name server for .org and says I'm looking for the IP address for WordPress.org. The TLD name server responds and says, all right, the authoritative name server for WordPress.org is this IP address. Connect to that server and they will be able to tell you the answer. All right, so we've connected to the DNS root name server. We've connected to the TLD name server. And finally, we connect to the authoritative name server for WordPress.org. And so the DNS resolver says I'm looking for the IP address and the authoritative name server finally says, sure, I have that information. The IP address for WordPress.org is 198.143.164.252. So the DNS resolver now has finally received the IP address. So it communicates to the laptop and says, hi, the IP address for WordPress.org is 198.143.164.252. So your laptop hasn't been doing all this communication. All it did was send one message to the DNS resolver. The DNS resolver communicates with all the other servers and it sends one message back to your computer, the IP address. So then your computer can now access that IP address, which is the web server for WordPress.org and says, hello, 198.143.164.252. Please send me the website data for WordPress.org and then the web server, which is shown in orange on this slide, sends that information back to the HTML code, the CSS code, the JavaScript code. The web server sends that back and your computer can finally show the website to you. All right? So this whole process is called the DNS lookup. So you're looking up the IP address for a domain and the DNS lookup is primarily conducted by the DNS resolver, which is the light blue server shown in the middle here and it connects to the DNS root name server, the TLD name server and the authoritative name server in order to find the IP address. All right. So let me pause and have a look at the questions that have come in. So, William, you asked, how does it work when several URLs share the same IP address? That's a good question. So some people might be familiar with the term IP version 4 and IP version 6. IP version 4. So this IP address you see here is an IP version 4 IP address. The world has basically run out of IP version 4 IP addresses. And so what we are doing is different websites are actually sharing the same IP address. So the DNS lookup, although you're looking for the IP address of the web server, when you make the request to the web server here, so in this orange request, you're actually still sending the domain name information along with the IP address. So the computer would say, hello, web server at this IP address, please send me the data for WordPress. So you could say, you could send a similar message, for example, hello, this IP address, please send me the site data for learn.wordpressable, which is a different domain. But if it's hosted on the same server, you're still connecting the same IP address, but just sending over a different domain. So to answer your question, if multiple domains use the same IP address, which does happen, your computer is still sending an IP address and domain name pair to the web server when requesting information for the web server can identify which of its website it should be sending back to you. I hope that makes sense. I hope that makes sense. Great. And then James, is the authoritative name server where you initially registered the domain name? That is a good question. And the answer is, it depends. So we'll actually get to that later in this presentation. So hold that thought and we'll talk about that a bit later on. All right. But thank you for the questions. Is there anything else anybody wanted to ask? Just to sort of review, so how does the domain name system work? The domain name system is sometimes referred to as the internet's phone book. So nowadays, you don't actually use phone books that often. You probably Google the company to find their telephone number. But like in the old days, you would have a name of a company. So you would open a phone book. It's usually listed in alphabetical order. So you look through that to find the phone number for that company. The DNS resolver does that for us. So we tell the name, the domain name we're looking for to the DNS resolver. And the DNS resolver looks through all the records to find the IP address and send that back to us. So DNS is sometimes referred to as the internet's phone book. And it's basically the process where a DNS server translates a domain name into an IP address for you. All right. That was the meatiest part of today's presentation. So if any questions come up, do let me know. But let's move on to the next section. And that is, what are DNS records? So if you've registered the domain, you've probably set DNS records before. But let's just take a moment to review what exactly are DNS records? So DNS records are text files that give information about the domain. So it's important to remember DNS records sound spectacular, but they're really just text files. So they're very small and they're connected to your domain. DNS records live on the authoritative name servers of a domain. So we talked about authoritative name servers. Authoritative name servers contain all the DNS records. And you can use tools like the Google dig tool, DNS tool, which I've also opened here, to look up DNS records. So DNS records are public information. You can look up the DNS records of any domain on the internet. And they're all public information. So let me copy this link and drop it in the Zoom chat. If you aren't familiar with this tool, you can have a look at this as well. And domain owners can make changes to these records. So that's us. We can make changes to our DNS record. Now, the way this tool works is, so you type in whatever domain you want here, for example, WordPress.org, and then you click on the type of record you want to look at. So for example, if I click on the A record, this will tell me the information about the WordPress.org A record. So we have a TTL value, which is short for time to live. And then we also have the data for this record. Now, this information will change depending on what record you're looking at. For example, if you click on C name, okay, this one does have a C name. For example, if you click on MX, you see we have a time to live value. We have an exchange value, and then we also have a preference value. Or if you click on NS, you'll see we have multiple NS records here, which each have a time to live value and the target value. Or if you click on TXT, you'll see we have three TXT records here, each with a time to live value and a value. So you can type whatever domain you want here and look up the records for that domain. So just to refresh, DNS records are stored in the authoritative name server for WordPress. And each domain can have multiple DNS records. So as we just had a look at WordPress.org, that had A records, MX records, TXT records, it could have a lot more records. And so all those records are stored on the authoritative name server. And then the TLD name server. So that's why it doesn't store all the DNS records because every domain could have multiple DNS records and that's a lot of information. So it's the responsibility of the authoritative name servers to keep track of all the DNS records. And the TLD name server just remembers what the authoritative name servers are. All right. Now servers remember DNS records for a while. And this is called caching. So DNS records, we had a look before each of them have a TTL value or a time to live value. And this tells the device how long it should keep the record before coming back to ask for the same information again. So for example, what do we have? We have a TXT record open here and the TTL value is set to 49 minutes, 26 seconds. So what that is saying is, once you request TXT records for this domain, you can keep that information for 49 minutes, 26 seconds and you don't have to come back and ask me about that again. 49 minutes, 26 seconds, just refer to that information and after the TTL has expired, then come back and ask me. The TTL value is different for each type of DNS record. And we, the domain owners can set this to whatever we want. So for example, the A record is a lot shorter. It's two minutes, 27 seconds. MX records are probably longer, an hour and eight minutes. All right. So each domain record has a TTL value and the process of temporarily saving information is called caching. Now with WordPress and websites, caching happens in a lot of different places. Today we're just talking about DNS caching. But if you're building a website, then you sometimes have like page caching, you have to clear or object caching in type of server, etc. So there are a lot of types of caching and in any case caching is just the process of storing information temporarily so you don't have to go looking for it again. So for example, for example, something we often do is like accidentally close our browser, accidentally close our page, and we're like, oh, I need to open that page again. So what we might do is once we accidentally close the browser, we would open up again, we would type WordPress.org and press enter, and the computer goes, oh, okay, I have to go looking for the IP address for WordPress.org. So it connects to the DNS resolver and says, what is the IP address for WordPress.org? Now the DNS resolver will look through its records and you'll notice, hey, I just looked this up two minutes ago. And the record he received has a four hour time to leave value. That means the record it has is still current, so it doesn't have to go looking for that again. And the DNS resolver just sends the same information back to the browser. So theoretically, a DNS resolver should connect to the DNS root name server and the TLD name server and the authoritative name server to figure out what the IP address is. But that is at least three requests it has to make before it gets its answer. So having a time to leave value means the DNS resolver can just skip all that and send the information already has to the computer. So from the computer's perspective, we're doing the same thing. It's asking for the IP address and it receives the IP address back. But in reality, this process is a lot quicker because the DNS resolver hasn't had to connect to all these other name servers to figure out what the IP address is. So caching can speed up the process of a DNS lookup. Now this slide, a user who attended my presentation yesterday gave me this information with me. In Wikipedia, if you look up DNS records, it gives you at least 48 different types of DNS records. Honestly, that is a lot. And in most cases, you do not need to set all 48 types of DNS records. In most cases, you probably just need three or four types of DNS records and your services run fine. But if you click on the image here, it will show you there's a diagram here that sort of split the different type of DNS records. So for example, we have like meta information. We have IP address related information. We have informational records. We have records for service discovery, records for email, et cetera. So there are different types of DNS records. And in this presentation, I'm just going to have a look at five. And in most cases, as long as you understand these five records, you should be able to set your DNS records properly for your site. All right, so the easiest record to understand is the A record. Now A, I believe, is short for access. So what IP address do I have to use to access the website? So A records, in the DNS lookup example I showed before, we were translating a domain into an IP address. What we were actually looking for is the A record for that domain. So the A record, so there's a domain, there's a record type, and then there's a value. The value is an IP address, and then there's a time to leave value as well. And A records are usually set shorter. And these are listed in seconds. So 600 seconds, what's that? That's 10 minutes. So for example, let's come over here. If we look at the A record for WordPress.org, WordPress.org, we'll see the time to leave value was seven minutes, 25 seconds, and the data. So there's an IP address here. And we can do the same for any domain. So for example, Google.com. And we see the Google.com actually has multiple A records, and the time to leave value is set to five minutes, and each of these records have different IP addresses. So we could access any of these IP addresses, and that should bring up the Google.com website. All right, so A record is the most basic domain, a DNS record. Next, we have C name records. And C name, I believe is short for canonical name record. I think we might have to ask Wikipedia to confirm that. But basically, C name records forward one domain to another domain. So for example, there is a domain, learn.wordpress.org. And although it looks similar, this is different to the WordPress.org domain. The two domains represent two different services, two different websites. But in reality, the information for learn.wordpress.org, like the website data, is stored on the same web server as WordPress.org. So this relates to your question before, William. These two domains represent two different websites, but the information is stored on the same web server. And so rather than setting, for example, the same DNS records for learn.wordpress.org, what you can do is set a C name record. And that tells us whenever we're looking for domain records for learn.wordpress.org, we can actually look up the records for WordPress.org and the same information would apply to learn.wordpress.org. Let's have a look. So before, we had a look at WordPress.org and we had a look at C name and there was no record found. So the WordPress.org domain doesn't have any C name records. But we can look at the learn.wordpress.org domain and here there is a C name record. And the C name record has a time-to-live value of about an hour and 20 minutes and it says the target is WordPress.org. So if we're looking for DNS records for learn.wordpress.org, they'll be the same as the WordPress.org domain records. James, you asked, is this what they call the subdomain? Correct. So learn.wordpress.org is a subdomain of WordPress.org. Now you don't have to set a C name on subdomains. Subdomains don't need a C name. You can point a subdomain to a totally different web server and set up different websites over there. So it's not that subdomains always have a C name record. But for example, in the case of WordPress.org, this subdomain happened to have a C name record that points to WordPress.org. So we have A records, we have C name records. Next we have TXT records. So TXT is short for text and these are just text notes, text notes associated with a domain. So you could write whatever you wanted in a text record and your domain would still work fine. So for example, you could type, you can make a text record that says, I love orange juice or chocolate ice cream is the best. Like you could literally write whatever you wanted in your text record. Now these records are public, so anybody would be able to find that information and it doesn't directly affect your domain. So text records are really just text notes added to a domain. But in reality, text records are often used for two purposes, domain verification and email security. So if we have a look at the WordPress.org text records, let's do that over here. So you'll see there are three records, three text records for the WordPress.org domain. And if you look at the value, you'll see the first one starts with Google site verification. Second one also starts with Google site verification. And then the third one starts with V equals SPF one and then it has a couple of IP addresses here, etc. So if you've connected your domain to, for example, Google search console, then at the very beginning when you connect your domain, you had to verify to Google that you do indeed own that domain. So you can't go connecting somebody else's domain in your Google search console account. You can only connect your own domain. And in order to do that, you have to verify to Google that you do own that domain. Now, Google has a few different ways you can verify your domain. But one of the ways is, goes like this. So you type your domain into Google search console and you say I want to register this domain. And Google says, all right, if you really own that domain, then go and copy paste this bit of text into a text record on that domain. So only the domain owner can log in to the authoritative name server. Only the owner can log in and add DNS records. So if Google can give you a unique piece of text and you can log in and add that text to your DNS record, then that proves you are the owner for that domain. And Google says, great, it looks like you are the owner. So we'll go and connect that to Google search console for you. Of course, if you've shared your login the information or like if somebody has stolen your login information, then anyone go in and edit your DNS records. So the login information to your authoritative name server is vital to the safety of your domain. So make sure you have the highest security on that login information. But yeah, adding a text record is one way to verify you own a domain. And then the second use of a text record is for email security. So we won't go into all the details of what's listed here. But basically what this record is saying is it's announcing to the world if you receive an email from a WordPress.org email address, check the IP address of the mail server the email arrived from. And if the email arrived from either this IP address or this IP address, then that email did come from us. But if the email arrived from a different IP address, a different mail server, then it's most likely a phishing email. And so don't trust what it said. So this text record here is used for email security. And in this case, this tells people what the correct email servers are. Should you receive an email from a WordPress.org email address? There's a bit more information here, but we'll leave it at that. So just to refresh text records, just text memos left on the domain. And they are often used for domain verification and email security. James, I see you've added another question. Subdomains are cheaper for clients since they don't have to pay to register another domain name, right? And the answer is correct. Just going back one slide, we were looking at how learn.wordpress.org is the subdomain of WordPress.org. But even though you own two domains here, you only have to pay for WordPress.org and then the owner can make any number of subdomain on that domain as they want. So yes, in theory, subdomains are cheaper. Well, in fact, they're free if you already own the parent domain because you can make as many subdomains as you want. You still have to pay for web hosting and email servers and all that. So the domain itself is free, but then everything else you connect to the domain, all the services you connect, you do have to pay as if it were a second site. So that's probably why you said it's cheaper. And that's correct. All right. Let's get through two more DNS types, DNS records. So the next DNS record is a MX record. So MX is short for mail exchange. And so MX records are used for email services. And MX records have an extra piece of information to it. So there's a priority number, a value, and the time to live. So the value is the domain name of the mail server. So we were talking before how website data is stored in a web server. Email data is stored in a mail server. So the two servers are built totally differently. They're configured differently. And so an MX record tells us what the mail server for this particular domain is. Now the priority is used because usually a domain will have multiple MX records. And so the priority tells us which of the mail servers is a priority. And then if that mail server is busy or down, then we use a different mail server with a lower priority. So a priority just tells people which mail server to use first. All right. And finally, NS records. NS is short for name server. And this indicates the authoritative name server of the domain. So James, before you ask, is the authoritative name server where you initially registered the domain name. The answer is you could make that your authoritative name server, but you could make a totally different name server, your authoritative name server. And NS records let you choose who you will make your authoritative name server. Now, domains will usually always have multiple name servers because if the authoritative name server goes down, then you can get the information for the domain. So most domain owners set multiple authoritative name servers for the domain. In the case of wordpress.org, it looks something like this. NS. NS1. Wordpress.org is the first name server. NS2. Wordpress.org is the second name server, et cetera. And Wordpress.org I think has four authoritative name servers. One, two, three, four. Yep. All right. So again, there was a bit of information just to refresh. DNS records are text files that provide information about the domain. And for example, the IP address of the domain is stored as a DNS record. It is actually an A record for a domain. All right, let me pause there. Does anybody have any questions about all these DNS records? So yeah, James, you asked about subdomain and how that eludes to the multi-site feature. Subdomains are often used in multi-site configurations. And in the case of wordpress.org, there are actually a lot of subdomains for wordpress.org. For example, we were looking at learn.wordpress.org, but there's also make.wordpress.org. So that's a different subdomain. And these are all part of the wordpress.org multi-site. So there are lots of websites inside the wordpress.org multi-site. All right. No questions. Okay. Yep. No questions are coming through. So let's move on. Those two sections are the biggest sections today. So the next few sections we should be able to get through a bit quicker. So where can I edit my domain's DNS records? And this comes back to your initial question, James. Does this have to be the place you initially registered your domain? Now, the quick answer is if you registered your domain through your web host, then your web host dashboard will have an area when you can update your domain records. So oftentimes when you sign up for a website, your web host will also give you the option to buy a domain through them. So if that's the case, you can edit your website and your domain information all in the same web host dashboard. But sometimes you would purchase your domain separately to your web host, or you might initially purchase them together, but then you keep your domain there and you move your web host to another company. So sometimes the two are in different locations. So in that case, where would you edit your domain records? Now, the overview is, first of all, number one, you choose where your authoritative name servers are going to be. So are you going to make your web host's name servers your authoritative name servers? Or are you going to use your domain registrars with name servers, your authoritative name servers? Or are you going to use a third service, for example, like Cloudflare? Are you going to use their name servers as your authoritative name servers? So there are a few options here. You can either use the name servers at your domain registrar, you can use the name servers at the web host, or you can use a third party service. So first of all, you need to choose what, who you're going to make your authoritative name server. Then next, step two, set NS records at your domain registrar that indicate who your authoritative name servers are. So at your name server, you'll always have to set NS records and that states who your authoritative name servers are. And then finally, step three, all your other records, you would set inside your authoritative name server. So I've prepared some diagrams to help us understand this a bit better. So example one, if you registered your domain through your web host, then you can just use your web host name servers as your authoritative name servers. So you can update your DNS records there, you can update your website data there all in the same location. This is probably the easiest case. And if you're starting off with WordPress, this is what I recommend you do. But sometimes your domain is registered separately to your website. So in this case, you need to decide, are you going to make your domain registrar your authoritative name servers or are you going to make your web host the authoritative name servers? Now, if you're going to use your web host as your authoritative name server, what you would do is in your domain registrar, you would set NS records that point to your web host. So people know, okay, your authoritative name servers are actually over here at your web host. And then all the other domain records you would set in your web host name servers. But maybe you want to use your domain registrar as your authoritative name server and just point your A record to web host. In that case, you can set all your records inside your domain registrar. And so there would be NS records that point to your domain registrar inside your domain registrar. And then you would just use an A record that points to your web host. So people know all your DNS records are here, but they can access the IP address of that A record to get your website data. So to answer the question, where can I edit my DNS records, you get to choose who you want to use as your authoritative name server. You would always set NS records at your domain registrar to point to the authoritative name server. And then all the other DNS records you would register inside that authoritative name server. All right, so let me look at the questions here. James, you say you only ask because a client of yours dislikes the service from a hosting provider and was asking me if they could move the record away permanently to someone else. And so that question for them. So the quick answer is yes. So you can move your web host or your website data to a different web host if you want. You're totally free to do that. You can also in many cases move your domain registration to a different service as well. So you can move your domain registration, you can move your web host. And whenever you do, you just want to update your DNS records so they're still pointing to the correct thing. So James, in your case, you will want to confirm. Does your client dislike the web host? Or does your client dislike the domain registrar? If they dislike the web post, then you would change the web. You would move your website data to a different post and then update the a records to point to the new host. But if they dislike the domain registrar, then they actually keep the a record the same because that still points to the same web host and you just transfer your domain to a different registrar. So I hope that answers your question, James. And then Larry, you've asked the question. Thank you, Laura, for answering that. Laura, are there pros or cons to putting it on domain or host? I just moved my Google domain to web.com and see that my name is registered with my domain. That's a good question. So if you don't have a strong preference, if you don't have a strong preference, then keeping your domain registered at the same place as your website is the easiest solution because then you just have to have login details to your web host and then you'll be able to edit your website and your domain all in the same place. So if you're going for easy, keeping them both in the same place is the easiest solution. However, web hosts sometimes add an extra fee to your domain renewal. And so depending on the web host or even the domain registrar, the price to renew the exact same domain can be different. And that's because each web host or each service adds their own cut on time. So keeping them both in the same place is the easiest solution. But sometimes it's not the cheapest solution. But sometimes finding a different place to register your domain and then keeping your website at the web post is cheaper. It's a little more complicated because now you have two logging credentials you have to look after and then you have to point domain records across. So it's a bit more complicated, but sometimes it's cheaper. And I guess the other thing is, if your domain is registered with your web host, then your web hosts support people are able to edit your domain records for you. So for example, you start your site and then you add email service later. Whenever you add an email service, you then have to add MX records and other email related records. If these are in two separate places, then you have to add those records yourself. But if your web host and your domain are all in the same place, then you could contact your web host support and ask them to add the domain records for you, and they will have the access to do that. So I guess if you're not familiar with domain records, keeping them all in the same place is indeed easier. But if you're comfortable editing your own records and you understand how DNS records work, then you may also want to look into registering your domain in a separate place. And I guess the final thing I wanted to mention is some records, some domains can only be registered at certain domain registrants. For example, country code top level domains are often very restrictive and where you can register them. For example, the .jp domain for Japan can only be registered through a limited number of registrants. Not every web post offers the opportunity to register .jp domain. And so sometimes if there's a particular top level domain you're wanting, there is no way to register that at your web post. So you just have to register that somewhere else and connect that to your domain, connect that to your website. So it's a case by case, but hopefully that answers your question, Laura. And I just noticed this should be example three. All right, so one, one, two, three. All right. Great. So we're coming to the end of the hour. I do have a bit more content I want to get through. If you have to leave this session, that's totally fine. If you have a few more minutes, please stick around and let's get through the last few points about domains. So what DNS records do I need for my site? So we mentioned before there are like 48 different type of DNS records. You could register them, but in reality, what records do you need for your site? Now, first of all, every domain needs DNS records. You need to register an authoritative name server for your domain. So every domain will always have DNS records. If there are no DNS records, the domain doesn't work. Now, on top of that, it depends what services you're using. So if you have a website connected to your domain, then you will want an A record. You will always need an A record. If your domain is registered the same web host, then they will usually set these records for you. So you might not have to manually set them. They will set the A records for you in the background. But if your web host is different to where your domain is registered, then you will need to set A records that point your domain to your website. And next, if you use email services, then you will always need MX records. So whether you have your own email inbox for your domain, or even if you're just using mail forwarding services. If you have any type of email service, then you will also need MX records. But really beyond that, the details of what records you need really depends on the service you're using. Every domain needs NS records. If you have a website, you'll need A records. If you have email services, you'll need MX records. But beyond that, the best thing to do is to ask your service providers, and they will tell you what domain records you need to set. So if your web host needs more records, they'll tell you what you need. If your email server needs more records, your email provider will also tell you what you need. But you probably don't need a 48. 48 is a lot of different type of DNS records. But really just with four or five records, you should be able to set the basic services up for your website. Laura, you asked a question. What does SOA mean again? SOA is start of authority. So start of authority. Now what that means, I actually do not know off the top of my head. So domain records, SOA. So SOA records thoughts, important information about a domain or zone such as the email address of the administrator, when the domain was last updated, and how long the server should wait between refreshers. Does WordPress at all have an SOA record? It does, all right. So the SOA records for WordPress at all. So yeah, that's the information. Laura, is that enough for today? You can also ask Google and you can probably find a bit more information there too. Now, one final point I wanted to get through today is domain record propagation. So when you look online for domain records, related information, you'll often see the word propagation pop up. And that's not a way we use in everyday English. So what exactly is domain record propagation and why is it important? So in general, whenever you make updates to your domain records, it will take time for those updates to reflect all around the world. And this is because, as we mentioned earlier, domain records are cached. Each record has a time to leave value. And while that time to leave value is still active, the DNS resolver and different servers won't go looking for the new information. So this means, even if you update your records, you still have to wait for the time to leave value to expire before people come looking for your new records. And that's why domain records take time to update. Now coming back to this diagram here, where exactly does caching happen? It actually happens in at least five locations. So inside your computer browser, your browser caches IP addresses, and then your operating system also caches IP addresses. So sometimes your computer won't even connect to the DNS resolver. If you've looked up an IP address recently and the time to leave value is still current, then your computer will skip connecting with the DNS resolver and it will use the information it already has stored. But beyond that, the DNS resolver also caches information, the TLD name server also caches information, and the authoritative name server caches information as well. So that is at least five locations, your domain records are cached. And for example, if your domain record has a four hour time to leave value, then in an extreme case, it will be at least 20 hours, almost a full day before my computer accesses the newest current information. So the information can be cached in more locations. So this is just a minimum. But hopefully this gives you an idea of why it takes time for domain records to update. So sometimes you've updated your domain records and you expect different services to start working, but they're not. And so you want to check, well, has the domain, has the propagation completed? Have the updates completed gone around the whole world? In general, in tech support, we usually say wait up to 72 hours for your domain updates to reflect all over the world. So 72 hours is three days. If you make any domain record updates, sometimes it's just a few hours before the updates are current, but sometimes it can take three days. So just keep that in mind. If you're launching like a new service on your domain, just keep in mind it could take three days once you make the domain changes before people can access those new services. And there are also free services online, free websites online where you can check domain name propagation. So I'll drop that link in the Zoom chat here. One of those is called DNS Checker. And what this does is it looks at different DNS related servers all around the world. It looks up the DNS records for you. If all the servers have the same information, then you can pretty much conclude the propagation has completed. But if different DNS servers around the world have different information, then it means your new information is still propagating to those different servers. And so you have to wait a bit longer for it to happen. And for example, we can look up wordpress.org. And then we can choose which record we want to look at. So for example, let's look at the MX record. Search. And this shows that these green ticks mean all these servers have the same information registered. So it looks like propagation has completed. Wordpress.org hasn't updated its MX records recently. So this is to be expected. But propagation is complete. So James, you asked a question out of curiosity. Where does VPN service reside within this diagram? Where does VPN reside in this diagram? I am going to say here. So a VPN allows you to, in a sense, mask or hide your IP address. So this computer says, what is the IP address for wordpress.org? It's connecting to the DNS resolver. But what it's actually saying is, what is the IP address for wordpress.org? When you have the answer, please send it back to me or this IP address. And so in this request, the computer will actually be sending its own IP address to the DNS resolver. So the DNS resolver knows which and the answer back to. So in this request, your IP address is going to get known by the DNS resolver. So what the VPN does is it stands in the way here. So you make your request to the VPN. Then the VPN connects to the DNS resolver in your place. And so the DNS resolver is only notified of VPN's IP address. And then once the VPN receives the answer, it sends it back to you. So my quick answer is I think it resides right here. But other people with more knowledge might have a better answer for you there. So I hope that helps you, James. All right. So that is the end of our presentation for today. Are there any final questions or comments people want to ask before we conclude this session? James, you say dumb question, but why must we IP if all IPs are public? It's not a dumb question. So for example, if I make a request here to, let's say, if I look at the address to a site that is illegal in my country, then the DNS resolver is maintained by people. So they can look into the access records in the DNS resolver, and they can tell who has been accessing what sites. So for example, if a government owns DNS resolvers, they can look at the records to see who in that country is accessing what sites. They can find the record of what sites their country members are looking at. Now, if you want to access a illegal site, then they will be known to whoever has access to the DNS resolver as well. So by using a VPN, you're sort of hiding your identity so that people beyond the VPN don't know who the real inquirer is. I hope that doesn't sound like I'm condoning accessing illegal websites. I'm just saying, in the world, there are people like that who would probably want to hide their identity so that they can access sites without being known that they have. So, yeah, great. All right. Any other questions? Thank you all so much for attending. If you have a question after this session is finished, I've left a link here to my Slack account. The WordPress project has a Slack instance, and if you make an account, you can connect with other WordPress volunteers in the project. So there's a link here to how you can create your Slack account, and then once you create your account, if you click on this link here, you can connect with me personally and you can ask me additional questions even after this session is over. Once this recording is processed, it will be uploaded to WordPress.tv so anybody can look at this recording again. And if you are interested in learning more about WordPress, then please come and access the Learn WordPress website, learn.wordpress.org, where you can find more information about using WordPress. So let me have a quick look here. James, you're back at 3.2 in grade. I'm glad you found this interesting. And William, can we have a lesson on mail service settings like DMARC, et cetera? That's a good idea. Let me make a note to do that in the future. That would be interesting, because email server, yes. And then what to do when issues arise with email? Like if you have your own email address, what can we do when email issues arise? That sounds like a good topic. So let me look into that, and I will schedule it in future. All right, thank you everyone, and I hope you all have a good rest of your day or evening. All right then, bye for now.