When you make changes to your DNS configuration, you want to avoid any disruption to a production zone that your business heavily relies upon. Using the following tools, you can ensure that your DNS changes have successfully propagated around the internet.
Domain Information Groper (dig)
Using the Domain Information Groper (dig) command line tool, you can test against the delegation where your domain is hosted, and you will immediately see whether the change took place without accounting for the cache or TTL (Time to Live) that you have configured.
To return the answer that the nameserver has for the domain, type
dig yourdomain.com @ns1.pXX.dynect.net
To see how the resolver is behaving, remove the last portion of the command. For example, type
dig yourdomain.com
For more information about using dig, see How to Use Bind’s Dig Tool.
nslookup
The nslookup command line tool can also be used to query DNS or obtain IP mapping. Because nslookup uses its own internal resolver, which relies on its own cache, you may get skewed results. Adding a -debug to your command line forces the internal resolver to requery the internet instead of its internal cache. For example, type
nslookup -debug @ns1.pXX.dynect.net yourdomain.com
Tools and Resources
If you do not have dig or nslookup installed, there are external services you can use to test changes to your domain.
Kloth.net. A free service that provides access to tools such as dig, nslookup, and WHOIS.
TurboBytes. A free service you can use to test whether your changes have successfully propagated around the world.
Catchpoint. A paid service that lets you choose a location from anywhere in the world to test the speed and reliability of your DNS answers.