Replacing main domain server impact on add-on domains and websites - .htaccess

I'm working on a website that has multple websites installed (via same CMS) and used as international websites.
The server at the moment is connected with a main domain www.example.com. International installs are folders in its public_html. They are pretty independent of each other.
Now the international domains like example.co.uk are actually defined as add-on domains that redirect to public_html/uk folder (which has its own htaccess, and again its CMS installation; files and db).
My question is what would happen if I point www.example.com to another server? what would happen if someone tries to access example.co.uk?
Ideally I'd like that public_html/uk folder to be connected with the domain example.co.uk but yeah setting the DNS to a folder is not possible.
Thanks everyone.

If you point your example.com to another server, this domain obviously would display content from the new server instead.
If you've set the home/root directory for example.co.uk as public_html/uk (which you probably have done), this domain will serve that folder as expected and changing the main domain would not affect this.

Related

Put a subfolder onto a different server with CNAME

Here's the situation. Website.com is an ASP site which needs a blog that is to be Wordpress. So the website.com/blog needs to be hosted onto a php-friendly server. The company hosting the ASP site doesn't want to have anything to do with Wordpress so we have to use some of the shared hosting providers.
How do I have the Blog section placed onto an entirely different server? I've heard this is done with CNAME, but I've never used it. Most of the research I've done revolves around subdomains, but I need a subfolder mapping, and there's not much to read about putting subfolders onto different servers with a different IP and everything.
Thanks.
There are a few different options:
you can bring the traffic to your own server and then redirect to
the correct location
you can bring the traffic to your own server and then proxy it to the correct location
you can direct the traffic to the correct location either via full page or an IFRAME type mechanism
Each option has some benefits and drawbacks depending your devs knowledge level and your infrastructure. Regarding subdomains, you could use a combination approach where you, for example, use subdomain.yourdomain.com to point to a server instance (can be the same server or a totally different one) that maps the subdomain.yourdomain.com name to a specific path, usually via Host header.
A CNAME is a function in DNS that says "Whatever thing you wanted to find for this name, use the same thing for that other name instead". When you're working with web stuff the "thing" in there is nearly always an IP address.
That is, what a CNAME can do for you is to say that when a user's web browser tries to look up the IP address for website.com, it will use the IP address for someotherwebsite.com. Note the total absence of anything web-related, like subfolders, in this. CNAMEs work on whole domain names, nothing else. Since you want to serve only a part of the stuff at a particular name from another server, CNAME cannot help you. CNAME is the wrong tool for you problem. Do not taunt happy fun CNAME.
In order to serve website.com/blog from another server than website.com, you pretty much have to do some sort of reverse proxying (where the ASP site's server relays requests between the user and the Wordpress server). It's probably easier and more robust to give the Wordpress site its own name (blog.website.com or something), and redirect to that from website.com/blog, but only you can know if that's politically possible in your case.

Domain name point to subdomain of a entire different domain

I am completely confused the last few days with this and I still haven't found an outcome that's worked.
Basically I have a domain name without hosting at letshost.ie which is dublinplasterer.ie
I also Have one domain & hosting with godaddy for domain- shanafagan.com which is my own site for web/graphic design service.
I created a subdomain= dublinplasterer.shanafagan.com and uploaded the site files.
Basically I want for example when someone types in dublinplasterer.ie in the address bar if goes to dublinplasterer.shanafagan.com but doesn't show dublinplasterer.shanafagan.com url, stays as dublinplasterer.ie
Im not even sure if this can be done at this stage. head is melted
shanafagan.com and the subdomain dublinplasterer.shanafagan.com have the same ip so how will that work if changing dns?
Any help would be greatly appreciated , am so stuck at this stage.
If you wanted to do it this way you would need a web server for domain2.com
Search for ProxyPass.
The way you should do this is add a second domain on your web hosting (cpanel for example) and point the other domain to this web server.
If you are struggling I recommend using a solution like cPanel that is widely used and simplifies much of the process. It is common enough you can google most issues.
So normally you would have started by making an add-on domain (instead of a subdomain) which would also create it's own subdomain anyway. To do that, you go to your cPanel in GoDaddy and find add-on domain, then make it "dublinplasterer.ie" (Don't add www. to it. Even though this name is hosted elsewhere, we will later go to your DNS files at that hosting and point it to your GoDaddy's name servers and this add-on helps it direct to the right root folder) then choose your local root folder for that site (I think you can actually make this the same as your other subfolder already hosting your files and then it will just pull the same site) or you can pick a different subfolder and then make the add-on domain. This tells any request to this name server that if it is a request for "dublinplasterer.ie" it needs to send it to the subfolder you specified.
If you don't make the subfolder the same as the one you already made, you can either load the same content into your new subfolder or create a CNAME record telling this add-on to point to your subfolder instead but that is more complex so go with the other route.
Lastly, you need to go to your original hosting at letshost.ie and under your domain name find the DNS records tab. Change the name servers to match your GoDaddy ones and now (may take a day or two to show as DNS changes often take days and can't be seen immediately but you can try using a different device/computer/mobile that hasn't loaded it previously to see if it will refresh the correct dns) it should work. Even though it points to your main site name servers, the add-on domain you made receives it and directs it to the subfolder you specified on the add-on domain.
Hope that helps, let me know if it works for you.

How to do a no-DNS site preview, when a wildcard redirect is in place

I'm looking to figure out how to replicate the functionality of GoDaddy's PreviewDNS when I'm moving a site to my own web host based in cpanel.
My setup is this: I have a wordpress multiuser site setup with a subdomain install, and a wildcard redirect.
I can't figure out how I can preview the website for an account before the DNS is switched over to my host from the old host.
I've been able to sorta do this by creating an A record of a subdomain over to my host, but I still have the issue of not being able to test the actual files instead of a copy in a subdomain.
I have two IP addresses attached to the server, one to the server itself and all the shared domains, and the other dedicated to the WP multisite.
When I go to http://ipaddress/~username/, I either get an error, or get redirected to the wordpress multisite's default "this site doesn't exist, sign up now to create it" page. I've tried this with both IP addresses with no avail.
Any ideas?
I think what you're trying to do is ensure that everything is working on the new server before having the DNS globally changed for all users? You could change your local computers hosts file to point the domain (and any subdomains you wish to test) over to the new dedicated IP address, which is essentially moving the DNS over for just yourself.
Here's a pretty good guide on how to do it: http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/27350/beginner-geek-how-to-edit-your-hosts-file/

Using DNS to Point a Domain to a Specific Page?

I know this question seems pretty straight-forward, but I'm having a hard time pulling up any answers on Google / Other Forums.
A client has a few domains parked on Network Solutions - not attached to any hosting account. I'm planning to point one of the recently purchased domains to a sub-directory of our main site (hosted elsewhere) - as part of a special promotion that's running.
However, Network Solutions now charges for Web Forwarding. In hopes of avoiding an additional charge I thought I'd use the DNS settings to point the IP to the site - but that just takes the user to the main website's home-page --- and not the specific sub-directory I need it to.
Since the domains are just parked - and not associated with a hosting account, I don't have access to a .htaccess file to deal with 301 forwarding or anything there.
Any ideas? Thanks in advance!
Just point the DNS to your server and set up vhosts for each of the new domains. Then, drop in a one-line JS or PHP index file (or mod_rewrite rule) to redirect to the desired page on your main site.

Transferring Everything from One Domain to Another

I want to move from one domain to another one that is shorter and (hopefully) easier to remember, but I also want the transition to be as seamless as possible.
I'm a coder so I know about 301 redirects and I intend to use them, but is there something easier than manually adding entries in my .htaccess file?
The website is static with the exception of the blog, which is under the /blog/ directory and powered by WordPress. I want it redirected to my new domain name. File and folder structures don't change. Isn't there some kind of wildcard thing for this?
What type of web server is the site being hosted on? If its on Apache, you can use the RedirectMatch command
Why not leave the web site unchanged, and [temporailly] let the both the old and the new domains assume the IP of the site, at the level of DNS ?
In other words.
Let the DNS setup for the existing domain as-is (for now)
have the DNS of the new domain assingn the particular server name to the IP of the web server (or preferablly to a 2nd IP, also assigned to this very site).
In a few months / whenever the old domain is soon to expire, check what residual traffic may still be using the old domain name (Old IP), and for them only, add a small piece of text somewhere in the UI to inform them of the new domain.

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