• Skip to content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

Foliovision

Making the web work for you

Main navigation

  • Weblog
    • FV Player
    • WordPress
    • Video of the Week
    • Case Studies
    • Business
  • About
    • Testimonials
    • Meet the Team
    • We Support
    • Careers
    • Contact
    • Pricing
  • Products
  • Support
    • FV Player Docs
    • Pro Support
  • Login
  • Basket is empty
Affordable VAST/VPAID for Wordpress has arrived. Serve ads with your videos starting today!

How to flush DNS on Windows, Apple OS X and Linux

18 July 2016 / Alec Kinnear / 1 Comment

After moving a website from one server to another, it can be difficult to get the new site to show up immediately even with very low TTL (time to live) times on the DNS server. It’s usually because of DNS cache.

As we have to test with all kinds of OS and different versions, I’ve put together how to flush DNS on each major OS (and even on Google’s tricky Chrome which maintains its own DNS cache) in one place for our own reference.

How to Flush DNS on Windows

Method One: Network Adapter

You can flush and renew your DNS by simply disabling your network adapter and re-enabling it with a right click. You can find your network adapter in the Network and Sharing Center among your Control Panels. If you are having trouble finding it, try the Start button and typing “Network”. Once there click “Change Adapter Settings”. Look for your active network connection and disable it first and then reenable it via right click.

Windows-10-network-connections

You may be able to disable and re-enabled your network connection from the task bar, depending on your version of Windows.

Method Two: ipconfig

You have to be running an administrator account. Just open command prompt Start > Run > RIGHT-CLICK Command Prompt, select “Run As Administrator” and then type the following command to flush the DNS resolver cache when troubleshooting DNS name resolution problems, type:ipconfig /flushdns

The following message indicates success:

Windows IP Configuration 
Successfully flushed the DNS Resolver Cache.

ipconfig works on Windows XP, Server 2003, Vista, 8, 8.1 and 10.

Note: on Windows XP and Windows 10 you do not need to run the ipconfig as administrator.

How to Flush DNS on Mac OS X from 10.2 to 10.11

OS X Yosemite and El Capitan

Use the following Terminal command to reset the DNS cache in OS X v10.10.4 or later and in 10.11:

sudo killall -HUP mDNSResponder

Use the following Terminal command to reset the DNS cache in OS X v10.10 through v10.10.3:

sudo discoveryutil mdnsflushcache

OSX-flush-dns-el-capitan

OS X Mavericks, Mountain Lion, and Lion

Use the following Terminal command to reset the DNS cache in OS X 10.7, 10.8 and 10.9:

sudo killall -HUP mDNSResponder

Mac OS X Leopard and Snow Leopard

Use the following Terminal command to reset the DNS cache in OS X v10.5 and v10.6:

sudo dscacheutil -flushcache

Mac OSX 10.4 and below

lookupd -flushcache

How to Flush Google Chrome DNS

Google Chrome maintains its own DNS cache on both Windows and Mac. This URL will take you to the Chrome DNS page where you can clear DNS entries:

chrome://net-internals/#dns

Once there, just press the “Clear Hosts Cache” button.

google-chrome-DNS-cache

I’d suggest simply closing and reopening Chrome instead.

How to flush DNS on Linux

If you’re running Linux you probably know how to flush DNS for your distribution. Here’s how to do it in Ubuntu, Debian and Linux Mint. Start by opening a terminal window. Type:

sudo /etc/init.d/nscd restart

or

sudo service dns-clean restart

On prompt, type your root password and press enter.

There are several other styles of DNS caching used on Linux such as BIND server and nscd DNS cache, depending on your distribution. Please look at your CentOS, Fedora, RHEL, SUSE or other distribution docs to see which one you should be using.

How to deal with stale ISP cache

Some ISP (in particular, the big US ones in the Western US, like Comcast and Road Runner) only update their own DNS cache every few days or in the worst case once/week. In this case, you should use an alternative DNS server. This is as simple as replacing the automatic DNS entries with manual ones in your network connection.

Two big US ones (who both spy on your browsing for commercial purposes and for government agencies) are Google (8.8.8.8, 8.8.4.4) and OpenDNS (208.67.222.222, 208.67.220.220). Both of these also filter DNS for known malicious requests (some ransomware and trojan sites will be blocked automatically).

To retain your privacy, you should pick the DNS server of a nearby university or alternative ISP with an open DNS server would be better. Make sure it’s one close to you for faster look up speeds. Namebench can help you find one.

namecheck-in-operation
Alec Kinnear

Alec Kinnear

Alec has been helping businesses succeed online since 2000. Alec is an SEM expert with a background in advertising, as a former Head of Television for Grey Moscow and Senior Television Producer for Bates, Saatchi and Saatchi Russia.

Categories: IT

Related Posts

  1. Laptops for Schools: Microsoft Windows, Apple or Linux

  2. How to create a network backup with Apple’s TimeMachine

    How to create a network backup with Apple’s TimeMachine

  3. Apple OS X shortcomings got you down? Read some Windows 10 blog posts to cheer up

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Ranjith 22 November 2016 at 11:39 am

    Thanks! Never knew that chrome has its own DNS cache.

    Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

You can click here to Subscribe without commenting

Primary Sidebar

My Account

  • My Licenses
  • My Profile
  • Invoices
  • Affiliate Area
  • Log Out

Categories

  • Business
  • Camera Reviews
  • Case Studies
  • Design
  • Flowplayer
  • Internet Marketing
  • IT
  • Life
  • SEO
  • Slovak
  • Video of the Week
  • WordPress

Footer

Our Plugins

  • FV WordPress Flowplayer
  • FV Thoughtful Comments
  • FV Simpler SEO
  • FV Antispam
  • FV Gravatar Cache
  • FV Testimonials

Free Tools

  • Pandoc Online
  • Article spinner
  • WordPress Password Finder
  • Delete LinkedIn Account
  • Responsive Design Calculator
Foliovision logo
All materials © 2023 Foliovision s.r.o. | Panská 12 - 81101 Bratislava - Slovakia | info@foliovision.com
  • This Site Uses Cookies
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms of Service
  • Site Map
  • Contact
  • Tel. ‭+421 2/5292 0086‬

We are using cookies to give you the best experience on our website.

You can find out more about which cookies we are using or switch them off in settings.

Powered by  GDPR Cookie Compliance
Privacy Overview

This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful.

Necessary Cookies

Strictly Necessary Cookie allow you to log in and download your software or post to forums.

We use the WordPress login cookie and the session cookie.

If you disable this cookie, we will not be able to save your preferences. This means that every time you visit this website you will need to enable or disable cookies again.

Support Cookies

Foliovision.com uses self-hosted Rocket.chat and self-hosted Freescout support desk to provide support for FV Player users. These cookies allow our visitors to chat with us and/or submit support tickets.

We are delighted to recommend self-hosted Rocket.chat and especially Freescout to other privacy-conscious independent publishers who would prefer to self-host support.

Please enable Strictly Necessary Cookies first so that we can save your preferences!

3rd Party Cookies

This website uses Google Analytics and Statcounter to collect anonymous information such as the number of visitors to the site, and the most popular pages.

Keeping this cookie enabled helps us to improve our website.

We reluctantly use Google Analytics as it helps us to test FV Player against popular Google Analytics features. Feel free to turn off these cookies if they make you feel uncomfortable.

Statcounter is an independent Irish stats service which we have been using since the beginning of recorded time, sixteen years ago.

Please enable Strictly Necessary Cookies first so that we can save your preferences!