My client have a dedicated server on liquedweb cloud service and we my web app is hosted on that server. We want our users to map their domain to our server. So they can enjoy our web app by using their domain name. What information I need to provide to my user so he can map domain and what information I need from them?
I don't know much(in fact anything) about domain mapping
thanks
It depends if the server has a dedicated IP address or is natted.
If the server has a dedicated IP address you can ask your clients to point their entire domain to you server by adding the following A records:
Host TTL Protocol Type IP Address
# 300 IN A 1.1.1.1
www 300 IN A 1.1.1.1
Not all domain hosts ask for TTL,if not dont worry about it.
If you want just their subdomain to point to your server (subdomain.website.com)
subdomain IN A 0.0.0.1
TTL is optional in some systems, in this case the default will be used.
Generally it is recommended that you use an IP for the Apex record and not a domain name. EG: example.com is the apex, www.example.com is the www subdomain.
A typical configuration would be below:
Host TTL Protocol Type Result
# 300 IN A 1.1.1.1
www 300 IN CNAME example.com
This is the same config as the top example but using CNAME example.com. It is the same as using A 1.1.1.1, it just means you only need to change one record.
If your server details are a hostname and not an IP address, most systems will not let you use the hostname for the apex so you will need to find out the IP address. (A simple method is to use the nslookup command or dig command).
TTL is how long in seconds a record last before it expires. If you are unsure what you are doing I recommend lowering this so you can correct mistakes more quickly.
Different methods for the different servers. For most of the servers, you have to change the nameservers of your domain.
This mostly needs when your domain registrar and hosting provider both are different.
First Login into your hosting account, navigate to the account details,
then copy the nameservers from there...which would be like :- dns1.hostingprovider.com
dns2.hostingprovider.com
After that, Go to control panel of your domain. Navigate to the nameservers
You will see the link:- dns1.domainregistrar.com
dns2.domainregistrar.com
Paste the above links at the place of below links.
They need the IP address (and possibly instructions on how to configure their DNS servers (which means a variety of different sets of instructions for different servers and control panels)).
You need the domain name.
Related
The following is more theoretical than practical, I want to test if I have understood the DNS system.
I'm currently renting a domain, lets call it example.com, from a provider.
I also own a server with a static ip.
Using the webinterface of my domain provider, I created an A-Record for my domain to point to my server.
Now everyone pinging example.com will find that A-Record (that should distribute itself to serveral more DNS servers) and thus ping my server.
Now I want a subdomain, which points to a different ip address.
My provider on the other hand won't let me create subdomains.
I can simply host an own DNS server at example.com, where I can add (arbitraryly) many records for any domain that is a subdomain to example.com (so not only subdomain.example.com but also subdomain.subdomain.example.com).
Now, if someone pings subdomain.example.com the following will happen:
They go to their favourite DNS server, which has an entry for example.com by now (due to distribution, see above)
Since there is no entry for subdomain.example.com, the will send an DNS request on udp port 53 to the A-Record ip behind example.com (my server)
My server will reply with the correct ip of subdomain.example.com
They send their ping to the correct ip
Is my understanding correct?
It's not far off, but there are more subtle things under the hood. If you want to host your example.com zone yourself, then you need to have your parent (.com) have NS records that point to your nameserver on your static IP. You would need to register that within your parent through your registrar that you bought the DNS registration with.
.com would need to host:
example.com. NS myns.example.com
myns.example.com. A YOURIP
And in your zone running on your machine, you would need something like:
example.com. SOA ....
example.com. NS myns.example.com
myns.example.com. A YOURIP
subdomain.example.com A SUBDOMINIP
If "subdomain" (your wording) is actually supposed to be in another zone enirely, then you need to use NS/A records to point to its DNS server (which can be the same).
You might go look for a good tutorial about how the DNS works in general. It will take you a lot further.
Let's say I have a website example.com which I bought via a common domain registry nomcheap.com.
I want all traffic to a specific subdomain app.example.com to go to name server ns1.appserver.com so I can serve a specific user app.
I also want all other traffic (www.example.com, hello.example.com, *.example.com, etc.) to go to a different name server from a different provider ns1.squaresites.com so I can serve a general website (think something like a commerce Wordpress site).
None of the name servers are provided by the original domain registry nomcheap.com.
Is this possible? If so, any suggestions on how?
To point a subdomain to a name servers you need to create an NS record for the subdomain:
app.example.com NS ns1.appserver.com
This will make all queries go to ns1.appserver.com
*.example.com NS ns1.squaresites.com
The second record should catch all subdomains that don't have their own records (of any kind).
Delegating name server DNS responses can be done was the answer by #Lanexbg describes.
Realize that chaining your DNS lookups this way adds more time to DNS resolution and adds another potential point of failure in the resolution process. If the parent's name servers are down, they won't able to deliver the NS records to tell the client's resolver to continue the lookup process through a delegated name server.
Consider if using DNS "A" or "CNAME" records at the parent's DNS server would be acceptable alternative.
For more detail on how DNS resolution is delegated see this answer on serverfault.com:
How exactly should I set up DNS to delegate authority for subdomains?
This might be a stupid question but i would really appreciate any compact answer.
I have uploaded a Joomla site on my local machine using a static IP address (213.221.211.111 for example). I have registered a domain (like www.example.com) on Godaddy.com. Within their dashboard, I set the primary and secondary name servers (I looked it from my router setup page).
Is there any else I need to do so that entering e.g. www.example.com would take the user to 213.221.211.111.
Inside of godaddy, you need to map "www" to your static IP address. It would be a good idea to also map the default entry for your domain, sometimes called "#".
Edit: Upon further reading of your original question, you don't set the primary and secondary DNS servers for your domain to your ISP's servers. Your domain's primary and secondary servers are for the addresses of the servers that are responsible for serving your domain. Unless you have your domain hosted with your ISP and not with godaddy, then this is not the right thing to do at all. If you have your domain hosted with godaddy, follow their instructions for setting up a domain and pointing "www" at an IP address.
In addition to what jricher said, you will also probably need to port forward.
I have been attempting to set up magento on a shared hosting server that doesn't support innoDB, ergo its not been possible. The domain I want to use has also been registered with this rubbish hosting provider. (one[dot]com for anyones reference). So I thought I would be able to point this domain to a different hosting provider that DOES support it, but one[dot]com doesnt allow me to change nameservers for the domain. They just said this:
You can only setup IP address, CNAME and web forwarding in our DNS settings but not change of nameservers
Would there be any way to change any of these settings or the .htaccess file so that, for example
http://www.mydomain.com/folder/page.php?query=string
Would display a page from the other server
http://xxx.xxx.xxx:xx/folder/page.php?query=string
I've created loads of sits doing all sorts but never really needed to other with the domain administration side of things.
You don't need to change name servers to map a domain to a different server. If the "good" provider supports it (i.e. allows you to register a domain on the server that isn't hosted by the company), just switch the A and MX records to the new server's IP address.
You do need the cooperation of the "good" provider for this, though.
If they're letting you set up the IP address, then setting the IP address of www.mydomain.com to xxx.xxx.xxx.xx should do the trick. On the other server, you'll need its webserver to be set up to serve www.mydomain.com as a virtual domain - if you're using a hosting provider they should do this for you; if not it should be fairly easy to set up (consult the manual of whichever web server software you're using).
I have someone telling me that DNS servers only start responding after the whois record is updated to point at their DNS servers. Is this normal behaviour? Or should a DNS server respond before the whois record is updated?
Also, once the domain is active, (so either after the domain is added or after the whois record is update, depending on the answer to the above question) how long till the name servers should start responding?
I'm not referring to the time that it takes to propagate acorss the internet, but just the time on the name server for the domain. I am also not concerned with when the rest of the internet sees the change, only wondering when that DNS server should respond when using a command such as:
nslookup www.example.com ns1.dnsserver.com
For the DNS servers to be found what you call the whois record must know where to find them.
Stricly speaking, the whois record contains much more than just the DNS servers for a domain, but let's not nitpick.
Say your DesktopA needs to connect to example.com, the following servers will be contacted, assuming the answer wasn't already cached by your ISP's DNS or the local machine.
DesktopA has DNS settings pointing to the ISP, so DektopA will ask the ISP's DNS servers if they know where example.com. is located (its IP).
ISP DNS server doesn't know, so it will contact the root domain database for com. (all Fully Qualified Domain Names end in a ., even though we generally don't use it explicitly, but you can try insert it in web requests, it should work fine).
This bootstrap list of global root servers is usually updated by the OS regularly.
The root servers will know which Top Level Domain TLD server to contact for each global domain such as .com, .org, .uk, etc.
In our example, the ISP will ask the root which server to query for com domains.
The root server answers with the IP address of one of the the .COM TLD servers.
The ISP DNS server will now contact the .COM TLD server and ask it where to find EXAMPLE.
The .COM database record for example.com will contain the 2 (or more) DNS servers registered along with the domain name example.com. These are part of your whois record.
The ISP now has the IP addresses of the DNS servers for example.com as setup in the whois. It will query the first one (or the second one if the first isn't available) and ask it: what's the IP of 'example.com'?
The DNS server for example.com will look in its records and return the A record defined for the example.com domain as IP 1.2.3.4 for instance.
Your ISP's DNS server will cache this information for a predetermined amount of time (TTL) and return the IP 1.2.3.4 to DesktopA.
Desktop A can now contact the server for example.com directly by its IP.
DesktopA may cache this information for a little while for fast lookup.
Tis would be the same for subdomains such as www.example.com or john.people.example.com. Everything before the domain example.com must be declared in your DNS server so when someone query for their address, your DNS server for example.com can look up the definitions and answer them (it could very well pass them on to another server as well if necessary).
In conclusion
So, to go back to your question, your whois record must be set with the proper DNS records for your domain before anyone can access them using that domain name.
DNS Servers operate completely separate from the Whois server. The relation of how fast DNS is updated after Whois depends completely on the registrar. A registrar or web host may update DNS within a second or 2 of a customer making a change in the control panel, or it may take minutes or hours if they make updates in batch mode.
Ideally all DNS changes that a customer request should happen very quickly on the DNS server (within a few seconds), but as you note, there may be a delay until changes propagate across the internet.