Free tools / DNS propagation checker
DNS propagation checker
Resolve A, AAAA, CNAME, MX, TXT, NS, and CAA from 16 locations. See which regions have the new value, the TTL, and how long the lookup took.
Example result
example.com A · not a live lookup16 of 16 locations returned the same records.
How a global DNS check works
A laptop dig asks one resolver. That resolver may still be serving the previous answer until the TTL expires, so a change can look finished locally and unfinished everywhere else. This page asks from 16 cities: Ashburn, Columbus, San Francisco, Portland, Montreal, São Paulo, Dublin, London, Paris, Frankfurt, Stockholm, Tokyo, Seoul, Osaka, Singapore, and Sydney.
With Regional resolver, each city uses the resolver on that probe, so caches can disagree. Cloudflare, Google, and Quad9 send the same public resolver from every city; anycast still lands on different sites, but the answers usually converge faster. The lookup returns the records and the TTL. It does not connect to the addresses it finds.
Record types
| Type | What it is | Example |
|---|---|---|
| A | IPv4 address | 93.184.216.34 |
| AAAA | IPv6 address | 2606:2800:220:1:248:1893:25c8:1946 |
| CNAME | Alias to another name. Not valid on a zone apex next to other records. | cname.scaledpapers.com |
| MX | Mail host, with a preference. Lower numbers are tried first. | 10 aspmx.l.google.com |
| TXT | Text. SPF, DKIM, DMARC, and domain checks live here. | v=spf1 -all |
| NS | Nameservers for the zone. | ns1.example.com |
| CAA | Which certificate authorities may issue for the name. | 0 issue "letsencrypt.org" |
Checking a status page CNAME
A custom status page hostname, such as status.yourcompany.com, needs a CNAME to cname.scaledpapers.com. Use the Status page CNAME example, type your hostname, and check that every location returns that target. The TXT challenge is _scaledpapers-challenge.status on your domain. Details are in Custom domain.
Frequently asked questions
- Why do regions return different records?
- Resolvers cache the previous answer for the TTL. While that cache lives, some cities show the old value and others the new one. Different answers can also be intentional: geo DNS and latency-based routing return different addresses on purpose. If the sets still differ after the old TTL, the zone is split or a resolver is stuck.
- How long does DNS propagation take?
- It follows the TTL of the record you replaced. A 300-second TTL is usually done within a few minutes; a 24-hour TTL can linger that long. After a name is removed, resolvers can also cache the NXDOMAIN from the SOA minimum.
- Why can't the root domain be a CNAME?
- A CNAME owns the name. It cannot sit beside NS, MX, or TXT at the apex. Hosts flatten that with an ALIAS or ANAME record, which is not a CNAME and will not show up as one here. Use a subdomain such as
statusfor a real CNAME. - How do I watch a record after this check?
- A DNS check in the console resolves the same record on a schedule from five Americas regions, compares expected values, and alerts when it changes or disappears. This page is one lookup. The check is the one that keeps running.
Know when the record changes
ScaledPapers DNS checks resolve A, AAAA, CNAME, MX, TXT, NS, and CAA on a schedule, compare the values you expect, and alert you by email, Slack, Discord, PagerDuty, or webhook. Free for 5 checks.