Redirecting a domain name via DNS

Is a CNAME record what I want to ask for?

[rjohara]

I'm an HTML person and network stuff is pretty much over my head - I tried to find an answer to this particular question but I don't have a good enough grasp of the tech issues to be able to tell whether I've found it or not. I want to be sure I know what I'm asking for so when I talk to the local tech people I'll have it straight.

I'm moving my personal website from a university machine (myname.myuniv.edu) to my own domain (myname.net). I parked myname.net a long time ago and set it as a simple redirect to myname.myuniv.edu following the instructions at Yahoo Domains, where I registered it. Now I'm going to convert myname.net to a full site, and I want the university address myname.myuniv.edu to disappear as a machine and be nothing but a simple DNS redirect to myname.net.

What exactly do I want to ask the university tech people to do (in terms they will recognize)? Do I want a CNAME record created that will permanently redirect all incoming traffic from myname.myuniv.edu to myname.net? (There is no ftp or email traffic at this address, only http.) If not CNAME, what is it that I should request?

<added>The existing machine myname.myuniv.edu is one physical machine with a unique I.P. (it's sitting next to me on the desk here).</added>

Many thanks.

RJO

[richlowe]

This is the way that I did it with my site (site name and IP have changed):

mysite.net. IN NS ns1.granitecanyon.com.
mysite.net. IN NS ns2.granitecanyon.com.
localhost.mysite.net. IN A 127.0.0.1
mysite.net. IN RP myemail.mydomain.com. richlowe.mysite.net.
richlowe.mysite.net. IN TXT "Richard Lowe, NIC handle: blah"

mysite.net. IN A2.2.2.2
wallpapers.mysite.net. IN A2.2.2.2 ; EXTREF
www.mysite.net. IN A2.2.2.2 ; EXTREF
mysite.net. in mx 30 mysite.net.

Richard LOwe

[rjohara]

Thanks, Richard. I think this is still a little over my head at the moment. I need to know what to tell the tech people in a way that they will understand it and I hope get it right the first time without messing up my referrals.

Here's how it will work. I call the campus computer people and say, "Hi. I've got a machine on my desk, myname.campus.edu, that has been running a webserver for several years and the address myname.campus.edu is linked from hundreds of pages around the world. The machine myname.campus.edu is about to be decommissioned, and I've just moved the website off campus to a new domain, myname.net. I need to make sure that all traffic coming to myname.campus.edu, which won't exist in a few days, is automatically redirected to myname.net. Could you guys please ______ so that this will happen?"

What goes in ____ ? Is is "create a CNAME record in the campus name server files"? I don't know about any stuff at this level, I'm afraid, and the campus system of course includes 1000s of individual computers all with their own static domain names, like the one I'm decommissioning. The more specific I can be in my request, the more likely it is to be done right.

Thank you!

[rjohara]

Very sorry to be a pest -- can anyone offer a suggestion on this? I need to be able to make the change this week (crossing fingers), and from past experience I've found that these out-of-the-ordinary things (for a campus network) are hard to get done unless you know exactly what you're asking for in technical terms. Thanks!

[DaveAtIFG]

I'll try to round up some help for you rjohara. The first question will problably be, "Is the name server running on *nix or Windoze?"

[rjohara]

Many thanks, Dave. It's a university machine so my guess would be unix, but I'm not positive. I.P. seems to be either 152.13.1.1. or 152.13.254.1. I thought there was a tool here on WmW for checking the header information from an address, but I can't seem to find it now. Perhaps that doesn't apply to nameservers, though, I don't know.

[amoore]

It's been my experience that a CNAME for your old machine to your new domain name is a really good way to go about it. Here's why:

Pro's:
- you can leave it there forever and forget about it with little drain on the university resources. (having them serve a refresh web-page or a redirect is probably more likely to get screwed up next time they diddle with their webserver)
- you can later change the DNS of your new machine around (if you get new IP addresses, for instance) and the university name points to your new domain name regardless of the IP address
-you can treat the traffic from people who are trying to go to your old name differently. (set up apache on your new machine to serve that virtual host differently, for instance to redirect to your new site with a notice or something of the change)
- you can serve your site entirely with no redirects or refreshes, which some people claim affect spiders/search engine's rankings of your site. Use apache's ServerName directive to correct the hostname that the browser requested.

Con's
- if people send mail to you at your old university machine, it may have problems because your MX record may end up being pointed to a CNAME record, which is not strictly acceptable by standards.
- you may have to set up your new webserver to either have this extra virtual host (and treat it just like your new domain name) or to serve pages for any hostname which points to your new IP address (often called a default virtual host, which you can't do sometimes if you're just one virtual host on your hosting company's machine)

There are problaby more arguments on each side, but I think that putting in a CNAME record for your old hostname pointing to your new one is the best way to go about it.

Hope it helps.

-amoore

[Gorufu]

Hi RJO,

>I.P. seems to be either 152.13.1.1. or 152.13.254.1

It was easy to find the uni's domain and your site from those IP's.
They are running Apache/1.3.26 (Unix) on Solaris.

In their DNS zone files they have a record similar to the following

rjohara.uni.edu. IN A 1.2.2.2

To do a DNS redirect using a CNAME record they need to change

rjohara.uni.edu. IN A 1.2.2.2

to

rjohara.uni.edu. IN CNAME myname.net.

The main drawback is that the old URL "http://rjohara.uni.edu" will appear in the browser's address bar.

It is also possible to do a redirect through Apache VirtualHost directives. Using this method "http://myname.net" will appear in the web browser address bar.

<VirtualHost 1.2.2.2>
ServerName rjohara.uni.edu
Redirect 301 / http://myname.net/
</VirtualHost>

RJO check your sticky mail