Every once in a while you may find it necessary to reset your DNS or your own IP Address. This may be necessary if you are doing testing, or possibly things just aren’t working as they should. If you aren’t familiar with these processes, it sounds more intimidating than it actually is.
How to Flush DNS
As scary as it sounds if you don’t know how to do it, you would be surprised how simple the steps actually are. Here are the steps to flush your DNS:
- Click in the search in your home bar and type “Command Prompt”
- Select Command Prompt from the search results
- Type “ipconfig /flushdns” and hit enter
That’s it! That’s the whole process. Easy, right? You can now continue with your testing after those simple steps.
Why would I need to do this?
One example of why you might need to do this is for testing wat IP address your website is hosted on. In the event of switching these IP addresses, you may try to ping your site, but could get the old IP address if your computer is holding onto old DNS.
How to Reset Your IP Address
This process is almost as simple as flushing your DNS, but with one extra step. Here are the steps for resetting your IP address.
- Click in the search in your home bar and type “Command Prompt”
- Select Command Prompt from the search results
- Type “ipconfig /release” and hit enter
- Type “ipconfig /renew” and hit enter
These steps will allow you to get a new IP address, or at least refresh your existing one. This is a quick and easy trouble shooting step if you are dealing with internet issues.