Forum Moderators: phranque
Host 1 - bought domain name from these guys. They gave free webspace so my site quickly went live. But I became unhappy with lack of support for my free webspace so I went to host 2.
Host 2 - I bought webspace, and asked them to repoint the DNS as I knew nothing about it. They did so quickly and easily.
3 months later, the site goes dead, as the company has just died suddenly. My site is offline, i cant access ftp/mail etc.
After a week, another company seems to have taken over the clients/files of Host 2 and offer limited help. To sort things out, I buy hosting with them but they turn out to be useless. After a fortnight they have not sent me anything at all. I want to get away from them now and sort things out myself.
So I need to get my website back online.
I know I need to go and get a decent Hosting company but the hole in my knowledge is the DNS step. I know that no requests for my webpage will reach my site as the registered DNS for my site is still pointing to non-existing servers on my dead hosts.
I have never dealt with the DNS stuff at all. I have no idea how "Host 2" did it. Who do i contact? How do I know? And most importantly, what do I need to know to make sure that i can prove I am the owner of my site and that this needs done?
Just to be clear - i currently have no access to any control panel for my site at all. My site does not exist anywhere in any shape or form =(
Help!
So the first thing you need to do is get that information. Use a WHOIS lookup to do that. You can do this from a number of different sites. One of the more popularm ones is [whois.net...]
Go there and enter your domain name (example.com) and do the search. Scroll down into the results. The most critical information you are looking for is that listed with the Organization. Does this list you or one of your previous hosts? Then look at the Administrative contact information. Again, whose names are listed?
Post a reply and let us know if it you are listed or if it is your host (or possibly someone else).
[edit]I guess even popular whois sources are not allowed. Sticky me for the URL to the whois site.
btw - the domain name was (apparently) automatically replaced with the **** characters - nice touch![/edit]
[edited by: txbakers at 6:07 pm (utc) on May 26, 2004]
[edit reason] put back whois.net [/edit]
ok, did my whois and got these relevant bits of info (all other like name and address are correct)
Registration Service Provided By: example.com
Contact: adam@example.co.uk
Visit: [example.com...]
(so far, this is all from the company i registered my domain with , "host 1".)
there are the personal contact details and then this;
Status: registrar-lock
Name Servers:
cp1.myhostdns.org
cp2.myhostdns.org
cp3.myhostdns.org
Creation date: 03 Jun 2003 19:30:50
Expiration date: 03 Jun 2005 19:30:50
These are DEFINITELY the dns of my "Host 2" company who went bust suddenly, as i have checked their welcome email =(
Ok - so far so good, what next?
ps. HELP!
[edited by: txbakers at 6:07 pm (utc) on May 26, 2004]
[edit reason] hid functioning URLs [/edit]
Your current registrar provides DNS services with your registration. So there's not really any pressing reason to move the registration to another registrar. I'll send you the registrar name and URL in another sticky. You might need to contact them to get your password or other account settings.
Once you've picked a new host and get the IP, just log into your account at the registrar and update your DNS record(s) to point to your new IP address. At a minimum, you will need to update your A record. You may also need to update one or more CNAME records. If you are using email under this domain, then you will also need to set the MX record.
If you have questions about updating those DNS settings, I would start a new thread here so the subject gets the attention of any DNS experts.
many many thanks my friend!
