I'ld like to thank TheFlyingDutchman, ukdm and benryves for checking my websites and pinging them. I spent another half day yesterday searching for the source of the problem and... I finally found it.

For the history: Until now I've been on a shared host with all my sites. Since I had some serious problems using any script which wanted to use more than 8mb of memory, and because in a far, far future, I might be tempted to install a server software of my prohibition project on a server, I decided to go for a virtual private server.

When registering for the VPS, the provider asked (in an online form) about the nameserver names to use, which I provided. After the setup of the server, the provider told me about the IPs and all other information including the nameserver names I initially gave. I logged into the server container software (Parallels) and saw that the nameservers where mentioned there.

So, I started switching my stuff to the new server. Sidema.be which is my company domain switched with no glitches. I entered the nameserver at godaddy as being hosts of sidema.be and entered the names into the NS field of my sidema domain...

I did this with two of my other domains... which made all the problems I described in my previous journal entry: Some could reach them, others couldn't... I definitely could not.

After the tests of TheFlyingDutchman, ukdm and benryves I had a talk with a friend of mine who pointed me to the problem that the nameservers themself did not show up as expected. He used a tool called "dig".

So I "digged" up (HA! Nice joke) "dig" for Windows and played around with it. And we finally found the solution: In fact, the hosts had not been created on the VPS. Although they were mentioned by Parallels, the domain "sidema.be" didn't have the nameserver entries. After adding two entries to the DNS management and waiting some minutes, everything went fine.

Lesson learned: Always add two "A" lines to your DNS management for the nameservers.

Tools used: Dig

Thanks for helping,
Stefan

Quick update...

before leaving for the weekend.

I didn't do any updates last week and I'm absolutely p**** about myself. I had no valid reason but a little down. On the other hand I'm struggling with setting up my sites on the new virtual server I have lent.

In fact, I have setup two sites, set their nameservers and waited for the nameservers to be distributed. Now strange things happen:

a) I can check my sites via dnscheck.net and they are reported reachable and all ok.
b) From my home (in Belgium) I cannot reach the sites. Even worse, they don't show up when I ping them meaning that the DNS doesn't solve to IP here in Belgium.
c) I have some friends in Germany who can reach the sites and some others who can't.

I reset the nameservers, tested again and a+b+c from above still occur.

If anyone has a hint what I can do or which checks I can make to see why I cannot access them from Belgium, it would be great if you post a comment.

Also, please try to ping/visit www.prohibition-online.com and www.game-developer.biz and make a small comment about whether you can reach the site or not. (There is no real content there since I cannot reach them to put stuff on them).

Thanks for your help,
Stefan