Implementing 3rd level domain name hosting - web

Say, you have a 2nd level domain name of your home town: my-town.us and you want to give away 3rd level domain names (like the-barber.my-town.us) automatically and for free to anyone requested (i.e. implement 3rd level domain hosting). How would you go about implementing it?
I thought about using wildcard DNS record *.my-town.us to point to a web app, which would make a redirect based on requested url. But that would not be any good, because redirect will, well, redirect instead of using the desired domain the-barber.my-town.us.

You should delegate subdomains, just like the domain my-town.us was delegated to you.
Just like you supplied contact information and a list of nameservers when you registered my-town.us, they should supply contact information and a list of nameservers to you. You then list these nameservers as NS records in the parent zone.

Related

CNAME Entry in Google Domain

there is an obligatory CNAME entry for one of my Google domains.
It reads:
_domainconnect.[mydomain].de CNAME 6 hours connect.domains.google.com.
What is this CNAME entry used for? As far as I have understood DNS this should not be necessary to find the actual server IP.
It is indeed not necessary for IP lookup. I suppose maybe Google itself uses it for something. I've found this https://community.cloudflare.com/t/domainconnect-in-dns-record-is-it-needed/185059 but no actual explanation of what it is.
I noticed this entry in one of my domains I have in CloudFlare that is registered via Google Domains, I also have another domain purchased there with a DNS zone on CF that does not have it. I'd say it's safe to get rid of the record — Google's dashboard never complained about it and DNS itself certainly does not need it.
It is more protocol than anything, and is not used to find your server's IP.
There is an open Web standard called Domain Connect that Google adheres to. Within Domain Connect's specifications (at this link at the time of writing) there is a section called DNS Provider Discovery that gives a full explanation of the spec Google is trying to fulfill by having that CNAME record.
To summarize what the Domain Connect docs say on this spec:
Every domain name, to meet this spec, needs to provide information on what DNS provider is being used (in your case, Google). It says that that information must be available via a TXT type DNS record with the host name of _domainconnect.<your domain name here>.
However, the docs alternatively allow for a CNAME type DNS record (CNAME is used as an alias record) with host name _domainconnect.<your domain name here> to point to another domain/subdomain that contains this TXT record with the record value the spec asks for. (Google does it the CNAME way with connect.domains.google.com. as the value.)
Whichever way this spec is done, the record value of this final TXT record should be a domain that you can do an HTTP GET request to, with the full URL being in the form of https://<the TXT record value>/v2/<your domain>/settings to get a JSON response that contains information about the DNS provider.
To see this in action:
If I go to a DNS lookup tool site like https://mxtoolbox.com/txtlookup.aspx, I can put the value of the CNAME record, connect.domains.google.com, in the search bar and see the corresponding TXT record, which has a record value of "domainconnect.googleapis.com". (Note: of course, when I use this value in an HTTP GET request in the next step, I'm going to strip off the double quotes.)
I should then be able to do an HTTP GET request to https://domainconnect.googleapis.com/v2/mydomain.de/settings and get a JSON response with information on Google as a DNS provider. I can see the JSON by just entering that URL in a browser URL bar. At the time of writing, assuming mydomain.de was a valid domain with Google Domains as its DNS provider, you should get:
{
"providerId": "domains.google.com",
"providerName": "Google Domains",
"providerDisplayName": "Google Domains",
"urlSyncUX": "https://domains.google.com/domainconnect",
"urlAPI": "https://domainconnect.googleapis.com"
}
And that entire journey was so that people/software can see who your DNS provider is, and some basic info about them, all via DNS. Phew...
Be advised that Google isn't the only big DNS provider that adheres to Domain Connect specs.

Redirect Domain Name Dynamically With Name Servers

I'm trying to redirect multiple domain names to their corresponding landing pages on my website using name servers, but don't know where to start.
Example:
I have two domain names 1)ABC.com 2)123.com. I want to set the name servers of each domain to forward them to the landing page on my website, so ABC.com would redirect to MyWebsite.com/abc and 123.com would redirect to MyWebsite.com/123.
Any help as to where I could a general direction to make this happen?
DNS is solely responsible for the name 123.com to address 12.34.56.78 mapping. It has no concept of anything that happens beyond that. Via DNS you would need to point both names to the address of the web server.
Then on the web server, configure a site at abc.com and 123.com, with each site being redirected the appropriate place.
This way, the HTTP software will detect which domain name is requested and redirect it as required.
You basically need to follow the link shared in comments, but do that for each domain. - How do I redirect a domain to a specific "landing page"?

pointing domain name to blogger

I have purchased a domain name from a local hoster.
When I go to may panel it shows the following things.
Registered Domain
I want my blogger to point here. But I have no idea what to do here.My domain name is bropoint.com. Heres what blogger says.
Blogger Details
Any one could help me with this ? Thank you.
Note
- Depending on your Domain Provider, the process may vary.
In BlogSpot
Head over to Settings > Basics and you will see an option which says Publishing >Blog address > + Setup a 3rd party URL for your blog
After adding the domain name, it will give two CNAME records. Once you have these CNAME details, login to your domain control panel.
If You are Using InMotionHosting
Click the Advanced Zone Editor button in the Domains section.
Click the drop-down menu, and choose the domain you want to edit the DNS for.
Click the drop-down menu under Type, and choose CNAME.
Add the record like this
Similarly add the second CNAME also.
You should be able to see both the CNames then.

How to detect the "owner" of a website?

after some web research I hereby ask for some disambiguation of webhosting terms:
With a whois (as a command in a terminal or a web interface) one can detect the registrar of a specific domain.
This registrar is a company (e.g. InterNIC, OpenNIC...) which sold or rented the domain to a natural person.
Can this person also be detected via a certain command or only by requesing the registrar for this information?
If there's something mixed up, please bear with me :-)
PS: My question relates to this one but as I assume the real owner does not necessarily have to be the company who sold the domain. Am I right?
Regards and thanks in advance
There is some terminology that might be useful here:
Registry - The company/organisations who has the
agreement from ICANN to operate the
TLD (Top Level Domain, the .com,
.org, .net, .coop). These
organisations are only allowed to
sell these domain names to Registrars
(Wholesale)
Registrars - These are
the companies that you, as a Registrant, go to to register domain
names with. These registrars will
often be able to sell you additional
services like DNS, Email and Web
hosting.
Registrants - These are the
end users (you and me) who want a
domain name.
There are some registries that allow you to hide your (the registrant) details. An example of this is Nominet (who operate the ccTLD .uk). There are also some registrars that offer a proxy service which you can hide your true ID behind.
Your are correct in believing the the company who sold the domain (the registrar) is not person/company who registered the domain (the registrant). To make matters harder there is no standard format for the WHOIS output, which can been fetched from the registries WHOIS Server (TCP port 43). There is discussions at ICANN to push for a new standard IRIS that will standardise the result in an XML format, but this is a very long way off.
If you want to, like in the other question that you referenced, have to in some way identify if your visitor is the valid registrant of a domain name then the easiest way would be to allow the user to select one of the special RFC stated (sorry I can not remember which one it is) email addresses, that should be set up by the registrant, eg. postmaster#, hostmaster#, root#, admin#, and then send a unique code to that email address that the user can enter back via the website. This is one of the methods used by the SSL companies to verify the requester of a SSL certificate is authorised to use it.
Hope that this helps.
Jonathan
Using whois on domain name, you can person or company who has registered the domain. the output depends on who bought the domain - it could be a reseller and if it is, you will not get an info you want. http://whois.domaintools.com/stackowerflow.com
Using whois on IP address, you can detect hosting company:
ping stackowerflow.com # gives you 74.125.43.121
http://whois.domaintools.com/74.125.43.121
If you have a legal reason, why you need to contact website owner, the hosting company will pass his contact information to you. If you don't then just go to a website and look for a "contacts" page :)
using whois :
Domain nameserver information for enom domains:
http://blog.phpcode.co.in/php/domain-nameserver-information-enom-domains/
Domain nameserver information for UK domains:
http://blog.phpcode.co.in/php/domain-nameserver-information-for-uk-domains/

How can I take control of my domain that is registered to me but controlled by web developers?

I've got a problem where I have a .co.uk domain of which I am the registrant but my web developers control the domain via easyspace.com. I'm not using the web developers anymore and it ended on bad terms so I would like to change my domain to another registrar without getting them involved. Does anyone know how I can do this?
Thanks
In order to do anything with your domain, you need to be a registered user for it. for every domain, there 4 types of registered user:
Registrant/Owner
Administrative Contact
Billing Contact
and Technical Contact
If you do a whois look-up of your domain name you can see if you are one of those registered users.
If you are, you should be able to contact the Registrar of record (i.e. GoDaddy, Network Solutions, GKG, etc.) and gain an account control login if you do not already have a login for them.
Once you have an account, you can change the Name Servers thereby pointing your site to a different server than it is currently, or initiate a transfer to a new registrar (which costs money - typically the price of a 1 year registration)
Tell them to give you control of it. You're not asking them to do something for you, you're just demanding them to hand over what's yours (assuming the domain is yours).
If you own the domain name, you should be able to change the information with the registrar to point it at another hosting service or your own.
Change your domain host to point to a new name server that you control.
You may lose your web site code but can always start a fresh.

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