Question

Plesk Droplet with DO DNS having shenanigans

I’ve setup my Plesk droplet and used the Digitalocean DNS integration to run the DNS through DO.

For new domains, this has worked in the last weeks. However, today I’ve been trying to move existing domains over, and strange things have been happening. Things like adding the mail accounts to Google Workspace is impossible because the connection times out, to a squarespace domain stubbornly stating my old DNS records, while it’s been 72 hours. When I test the DNS records with Google Dig, it might show the old records on one instance, and after refreshing showing the correct ones, only to revert back seconds later.

I’d like to keep my sanity, and first check if this is correct:

  • The public ipv4 is 178.128.252.39

DNS records in Plesk:

Type Hostname Value
A ns1.domain.com 178.128.252.39
A ns2.domain.com 178.128.252.39
NS domain.com ns1.domain.com
NS domain.com ns2.domain.com
A mail.domain.com 178.128.252.39
A webmail.domain.com 178.128.252.39
MX domain.com mail.domain.com

In Digitalocean, it’s the following (after sync):

I don’t fully understand the NS to IP records in Plesk, or why it has different NS records in Plesk than DO, but it’s setup exactly according to the how to guide. Is this the right result?

Now, in addition to those records, for this site the hosting is done by Squarespace. I’ve removed the following DNS records from Plesk:

Type Hostname Value
A domain.com 178.128.252.39
A ipv4.domain.com 178.128.252.39
CNAME ftp.domain.com domain.com
CNAME www.domain.com domain.com

I’ve inserted the ones from Squarespace:

Type Hostname Value
CNAME www.domain.com ext-cust.squarespace.com
A domain.com 198.185.159.144
A domain.com 198.185.159.145
A domain.com 198.49.23.144
A domain.com 198.49.23.145

Now, I’ve been trying to have an email from this domain, that I created in Plesk, to be added to a gmail account through pop3/smtp. It gives “connection timed out” errors and “cannot find server” errors. I’m setting it up with the mail server being “domain.com”, through pop port 995, which are the details that Plesk gives you. I’ve also tried mail.domain.com, the IP itself, with/without SSL, you name it.

Strangely, Google (and squarespace) seem to have trouble with my DNS records. But when I try the Google Dig tool, it shows all the right records some times, but when I refresh my page it might show all the wrong (old) ones.

Squarespace is the same. It might find the Squarespace WWW Cname one time, and the default plesk WWW cname the other.

I understand propagation takes time, but why can it go back and forth from the right records to the wrong ones, without me doing anything in the meantime?


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alexdo
Site Moderator
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August 18, 2023

It sounds like you’re dealing with DNS propagation inconsistencies. This is actually more common than you think and can depend on many factors such as ISP, location, etc. DNS changes can be propagated inconsistently across the Internet and in some cases, it can even seem to go back and forth between old and new records. DNS changes can take up to 72 hours so sometimes you need to be patient.

Your DNS settings in Plesk and DigitalOcean seem to be in order. It’s important to note that the NS records in Plesk refer to your domain’s nameServers, while the NS records in DigitalOcean refer to the DNS servers responsible for resolving your domain name to the appropriate IP address.

The timeout and server not found issues, these might be due to the DNS propagation still happening. If the domain is trying to resolve to an old IP address, connection issues might occur.

As for the Gmail setup, try using mail.domain.com instead of domain.com as per the Plesk instructions. Continue to use SSL as that is the recommended and secure method. If the problems persist, kindly wait for DNS propagation to fully stabilize across the internet as it could take up to 72 hours.

You may periodically check on your DNS propagation using the global DNS propagation checker such as “Whatsmydns.net”. Hopefully, this helps to keep things consistent and clear!

For more information on DNS and propagation, you can refer to our documentation:

https://www.digitalocean.com/docs/networking/dns

Hope that this helps!

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