Short story:

Vista: Run “Command Prompt” as administrator |  Enter “ipconfig /flushdns’ | | | Help

XP:  Run “Command Prompt”  |  Enter “ipconfig /flushdns’ | | | Help

Mac OS X 10.6:  Run terminal.app (its in the utilities folder) | enter ‘dscacheutil -flushcache’  | | | Help

Logn Story:

DNS is like a  huge number of databases all connected (via the internet) and talking on a “need to know” basis.

Works like this:

Situation: I want to go to the web page for MICROSOFT.COM.  So I type http://www.microsoft.com into the address line of my web browser (ie. Internet Explorer).

My computer has a DNS cache that tells the browser what IP address to go to for www.microsoft.com.  My computer then sends a request for information to my gateway (my router) that “says go to this ip address and get me this information”.

What happens if my computer’s DNS cache does not know the IP address.  Well, the computer then works through a series of searches to find the IP address.  The computer looks at its HOSTS file to see if something about www.microsoft.com is there.  It asks the designated DNS server if it knows. The DNS server is a router in my office or server out on the internet.  The DNS server replies with the information or asks other DNS servers (it knows about).  This progresses on up the chain.  Each DNS server asking the next one up if it knows the location of www.microsoft.com.

If a DNS server is down or slow to respond , you get a slow response on getting the webpage up – unrelated to the speed at which the webpage is dished out so to speak. However, many webpages have references to other media (youtube videos, weather, image servers, etc) which cause yet another DNS query or lookup and the cycle continues until the page is completed.  Slow or poorly connected or non-functioning DNS servers can slow things down quite a bit since the problem multiples given the number of external references a page has.

Secondary DNS servers are needed and valuable (and required at times) as they are a fallback in case the Primary DNS server dies or does not respond. But, that means there may be a delay in performance as the computer switches to using the Secondary DNS server or a DNS server up the line has to switch to using a Secondary DNS server. Imagine the delay if a couple of DNS servers have to switch to Secondary DNS servers up the line.

Back at the top, sometimes the DNS cache on a PC has bad information so it needs to be flushed. Many times this works by just rebooting the computer. Other times you can just flush the cache at the command line (see references at the top of this article).  Other situations include the wrong DNS servers to ask where things are.  In this case our technicians will frequently ask clients to e4xamine DNS settings on their computers or routers to confirm they are setup correctly.

Hope you day is less mind boggling then mine!

Rick

Please view the video and email support@orcasonline.com if you have questions.

Here are the steps:

1. Run the mail program.

2. From the tools menu select accounts and find the mail area.

3. Double click on the mail account on which you want to adjust settings. Or choose the account and “change” it or go to the “properties”. One of those should get the properties open.

4. Once the properties window is open choose the “Servers” tab.

5. In the servers tab make sure the “Outgoing” server is: smtp.orcasonline.com

6. DO NOT choose the “Secure Password Authentication” check box below the password field.

7. At the bottom of the screen make sure “My Outgoing Server Requires Authentication” is checked
Don’t worry about the settings button.

8. Now open the “Advanced” tab at the top of this window. Change the outgoing mail server port from  25 to 465 then make sure the “Server requires a secure connection” is checked.

9. Click Apply and the OK at the bottom. Then close the Internet accounts window and all is done.

10. When sending your first message you may be asked to approve a secure certificate. Please do so.

In the new window click the plus sign bottom left.
At the very bottom add the server name “smtp.orcasonline.com” – leave the description alone.
Click the advanced tab click the “Use Secure Sockets Layer (SSL)”
On the Authentication: line Choose “Password”
Enter your username and password.
Click “OK”

and Close the next window making sure you save settings if requested.

During this procedure there may be a “Certificate Issue or Acceptance” screen which appears.  Approve the certificate.

Re-open the Preferences and make sure the proper outgoing server is chosen, if not, then make the change and close the window saving changes.

In any case life has been run flat out since…. All outgoing mail stopped until we moved users to the incoming mail server while we rebuilt the outgoing.

The the next Sunday/Monday morning we had a wind storm that took out some upstream provider equipment.  Took out IP aggresses related to our Incoming Server.  So… we had to make sure that users that had moved  to that server were moved back to the now new Outgoing server. AND rerouted out traffic out through our fiber link AND re-routed our DSL base to an alternate IP for incoming mail AND adjusted our Postini Mail Delivery settings AND modified our DNS record for our email to our Fiber IP block.  All the while answering and trouble shooting customer issues related to the same changes. Great customers.  They are hanging in there! Nary an unreasonable one in the bunch.

To all you customers – sorry if I was short or brief with you.  I am not great moving back and forth from “speak to server-speak to human”. Servers don’t notice when you sit and think abut what to do next. Humans do.

I will be posting some HowTos on setting up email and refine them as I get this site up to speed. Bear with and ask lots of questions.

Rick