Website troubleshooting tools

Overview

This article lists a variety of services and tools you can use to troubleshoot your site before contacting support. If you still need to contact support, make sure to include the results of any tests you have run using the links below.

General

These are general sites that offer many different types of website tools.

archive.org – View how a website appeared on a specific date in the past
mxtoolbox.com – A collection of tools (many email related) to troubleshoot your site

Domain registration

The following links provide information on domain registration services such as DNS and WHOIS lookups.

whois.domaintools.com – WHOIS lookup
ICANN Nameserver lookup — Registrar and nameserver lookup
whoisrequest.com — Shows historical nameserver changes

DNS tools

The following is a list of various tools to check the different types of DNS records of a website.

General DNS record lookups

Centralops.net – Various DNS tests
Network-tools.com – Various DNS tests
ICANN Nameserver lookup – Registrar and nameserver lookup
DreamHost DNS Propagation Checker — Checks if your DreamHost DNS records have propagated in different locations

CNAME, SRV, and TXT records

mxtoolbox.com – CNAME record lookup

Email tools

The following are various tools to check your domain's email addresses.

centralops.net – Test/troubleshoot a single email address
toolbox.googleapps.com – Message header analyzer

MX

mxtoolbox.com – MX record lookup
toolbox.googleapps.com – Google's MX record test

SPAM

regex101.com – Regular Expression tester you can use when creating custom message filters in your panel
mxtoolbox.com – Blacklist check

IP address lookup

The following tools check the IP addresses of a domain.

whatismyip.com – Displays the IP address your computer is using
whatismyipaddress.com – Lookup global location of an IP address
IPlocationfinder.com – Used to find the global location of an IP address

Network tools

These tools help to troubleshoot networking issues that could potentially affect your website.

Ping

The following links all offer IPv4 ping tests:

Traceroute

The following sites all offer IPv4 traceroute tests:

IPv6

test-ipv6.com – Displays your computer's IPv6 connectivity

Ping IPv6

The following links all offer IPv6 ping tests:

Traceroute IPv6

The following links all offer IPv6 traceroute tests:

looking-glass

Proxy sites

A proxy site can be used to view your website from a different location. For example, you can use a proxy site in France to check how and if your site is resolving in that location. Below are a few common proxy sites:

SSL tools

These tools provide information about your website's SSL certificate.

sslshopper.com – Analyzes your SSL certificate
ssllabs.com – Analyzes your SSL certificate
whynopadlock.com – Lists files called insecurely on your site responsible for an insecure SSL padlock

Website loading tools

Site load tests

The following sites test how long your page takes to load. They also give details about what may be responsible for the load time:

Pingdom.com
gtmetrix.com
Webpagetest.org
Google's PageSpeed Insights
Bytecheck.com – Checks the Time to First Byte

DNS propagation tests

DreamHost DNS Propagation Checker — Checks if your DreamHost DNS records have propagated in different locations
whatsmydns.net — Checks DNS records around the world
wheresitup.com — Checks if the site is resolving in different locations

Location based tests

Speedtest.net – Tests your local network upload/download speed. Used to test if your specific location is where the network issue may be occurring.

Miscellaneous tests

General upstream ISP reports

Text editors

Text editors are used for managing your website, allowing you to edit your website's configuration files and pages. Below are a few common text editors:

Command-line tools

There are also several command-line tools that you can use to retrieve information about a domain or network condition(s). View the SSH article for details on how to log into your server.

The following is a list of basic examples. Make sure to read the links in each section for further details.

host

The host command converts names to IP addresses and vice versa.

Run host on example.com to find its IP and MX records:

[server]$ host example.com

Run host on the IP to find its domain name:

[server]$ host 173.236.241.100

nslookup

Interactive nameserver lookup.

WHOIS

A WHOIS query displays details about a domain registration:

[server]$ whois example.com

dig

The dig command looks up various DNS records.

IPv4 record lookup

[server]$ dig +short example.com

IPv6 record lookup

[server]$ dig +short AAAA example.com

Text record lookup

[server]$ dig TXT example.com

CNAME record lookup. Make sure to enter the correct CNAME record before the domain:

[server]$ dig CNAME abcdefg.example.com

SRV record lookup. Make sure to enter the correct SRV record before the domain:

[server]$ dig SRV _sip.example.com

Checking your domain's DNS records

The following explains how to check your domain's A records to confirm where they are currently pointing.

Using Linux or Mac

Run the dig command to check the current IP address of your domain resolving in your location.

[server]$ dig +short example.com

Run the following command to check IP address of your domain resolving on DreamHost's nameserver.

[server]$ dig +short example.com @ns1.dreamhost.com

If example.com is using DreamHost nameservers, both commands should display the same IP address. If not, try flushing your local DNS.

Using Windows

Run the nslookup command in your command prompt to check the IP address of your domain resolving in your location.

C:\Users\user> nslookup example.com