Domain Re-Direction - !?!?!!

sticker · 03-08-2005 5:23am #1

Hey all,

I've just finished a site for a large client, and I've put the site up on Direct Nic bannerless webspace, However, The client owns his own .ie with Eircom and after directing them to point the .ie to Direct Nic space, it's simply not happening...!

I'm acting like a middleman between the two companies.

1) Is this a fairly simple task I'm asking Eircom?!

2) Does the client have any rights to DEMAND Eircom just get it sorted?!

Thanks in Advance.

Sticker

Bamboozled · 03-08-2005 6:46am

The DNS takes time to update and direct to the website. Its not instant and can take up to 24 hours, or longer.

If he bought a domain name he should have a control panel where he can log in and direct the domain name to the correct host of his site. (I've always had my own control panel for each domain name, never heard of the company not giving access to it.)

Make sure he has done this properly. Once a domain name is sold, the company that sold it (ie - Eircom) usuall has nothing to do with it. You pay for the name - you control it. Find out did he do that before approaching Eircom.

mneylon · 03-08-2005 8:11am

If you can give Eircom the IP address to point the domain at they should be able to do it.

axer · 03-08-2005 9:49am

I think you can contact the IEDR (Ie Domain Registry) directly and get them to change it - A contact from the company is probably named under the domain name and they can request the change by faxing in a letter with their letterhead.
I wouldn't use eircom for domain registration or hosting anyways they are too slow at everything - switch to hosting365 or blacknight. Eircom are a joke.

sticker · 03-08-2005 2:52pm

blacknight wrote:

If you can give Eircom the IP address to point the domain at they should be able to do it.

I asked the hosting company for an IP and they replied with this:

Hello,
Domains hosted here share 11 IP addresses, and about 500,000 domains are
hosted here, so accessing your domain by its IP address isn't possible. That being the case, you may want to look into setting up a CNAME record for your .ie domain to point to your domain that's hosted here.

The site is fully functional under Direct Nic, I've given it a temporary address and alls fine - It loads perfectally, Eircom just seem incapable to point to the site. The re-direction leads to http://www.directnicparking.com.

This was the latest spiel from Eircom;

Hi,
We only host the DNS for this domain.
As you can see from the output of the dig below the DNS records have been
modified as you requested:
(you can verify this yourself using any dig or nslookup utility)

; <<>> DiG 2.1 <<>> @ns1.tinet.ie www.gardaclub.ie A
; (1 server found)
;; res options: init recurs defnam dnsrch
;; got answer:
;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 10
;; flags: qr rd ra; Ques: 1, Ans: 2, Auth: 0, Addit: 0
;; QUESTIONS:
;; www.gardaclub.ie, type = A, class = IN

;; ANSWERS:
www.gardaclub.ie. 86400 CNAME www.westmanstown.com.
www.westmanstown.com. 86400 A 206.251.184.10

;; Total query time: 384 msec
;; FROM: us.mirror.menandmice.com to SERVER: ns1.tinet.ie 159.134.237.6
;; WHEN: Tue Aug 2 01:39:51 2005
;; MSG SIZE sent: 34 rcvd: 84

There is nothing more we can do to troubleshoot or fix a problem with the
web site not displaying as we do not host the web site that this domain is
being redirected to i.e. www.westmanstown.com

Regards,
Leon
eircom net Corporate Support.

Haven't a breeze what he's saying!!

seamus · 03-08-2005 3:33pm

I would guess (I could very much be wrong), that since Direct NIC are using virtual hosting, they have no virtual host record for Gardaclub.ie, so when you try to access that domain, it redirects to the specified default domain http://www.directnicparking.com

Eircom would seem to be in the clear here.

Now, that said, I get some very different results.

gardaclub.ie	IN	NS	auth01.ns.eircom.net	86400s	(1.00:00:00)
gardaclub.ie	IN	NS	auth02.ns.eircom.net	86400s	(1.00:00:00)
gardaclub.ie	IN	NS	auth03.ns.eircom.net	86400s	(1.00:00:00)
gardaclub.ie	IN	MX	
preference:	10
exchange:	mail.gardaclub.ie
	86400s	(1.00:00:00)
gardaclub.ie	IN	MX	
preference:	11
exchange:	relay.netspeed.ie
	86400s	(1.00:00:00)
gardaclub.ie	IN	SOA	
server:	auth01.ns.eircom.net
email:	hostmaster.eircom.net
serial:	2005072701
refresh:	28800
retry:	7200
expire:	604800
minimum ttl:	86400
	86400s	(1.00:00:00)

It's possible they were only changed in the last day though

seamus · 03-08-2005 3:43pm

Actually, Eircom aren't in the clear:

auth03.ns.eircom.net [159.134.191.34] returned an authoritative response in 117 ms:
Answer records
name	class	type	data	time to live
gardaclub.ie	IN	NS	auth01.ns.eircom.net	86400s	(1d)
gardaclub.ie	IN	NS	auth02.ns.eircom.net	86400s	(1d)
gardaclub.ie	IN	NS	auth03.ns.eircom.net	86400s	(1d)
gardaclub.ie	IN	MX	
preference:	10
exchange:	mail.gardaclub.ie
	86400s	(1d)
gardaclub.ie	IN	MX	
preference:	11
exchange:	relay.netspeed.ie
	86400s	(1d)
gardaclub.ie	IN	SOA	
server:	auth01.ns.eircom.net
email:	hostmaster@eircom.net
serial:	2005072701
refresh:	28800
retry:	7200
expire:	604800
minimum ttl:	86400
	86400s	(1d)
Authority records
name	class	type	data	time to live
gardaclub.ie	IN	NS	auth01.ns.eircom.net	86400s	(1d)
gardaclub.ie	IN	NS	auth02.ns.eircom.net	86400s	(1d)
gardaclub.ie	IN	NS	auth03.ns.eircom.net	86400s	(1d)
Additional records
name	class	type	data	time to live
auth01.ns.eircom.net	IN	A	159.134.237.61	86400s	(1d)
auth02.ns.eircom.net	IN	A	159.134.237.59	86400s	(1d)
auth03.ns.eircom.net	IN	A	159.134.191.34	86400s	(1d)
mail.gardaclub.ie	IN	A	83.70.118.118	86400s	(1d)
relay.netspeed.ie	IN	A	195.218.118.36	2466s	(41m 6s)

auth01.ns.eircom.net [159.134.237.61] returned an authoritative response in 117 ms:
Answer records
name	class	type	data	time to live
gardaclub.ie	IN	SOA	
server:	auth01.ns.eircom.net
email:	hostmaster@eircom.net
serial:	2005072701
refresh:	28800
retry:	7200
expire:	604800
minimum ttl:	86400
	86400s	(1d)
gardaclub.ie	IN	MX	
preference:	11
exchange:	relay.netspeed.ie
	86400s	(1d)
gardaclub.ie	IN	MX	
preference:	10
exchange:	mail.gardaclub.ie
	86400s	(1d)
gardaclub.ie	IN	NS	auth03.ns.eircom.net	86400s	(1d)
gardaclub.ie	IN	NS	auth01.ns.eircom.net	86400s	(1d)
gardaclub.ie	IN	NS	auth02.ns.eircom.net	86400s	(1d)
Authority records
[none]
Additional records
name	class	type	data	time to live
mail.gardaclub.ie	IN	A	83.70.118.118	86400s	(1d)
auth01.ns.eircom.net	IN	A	159.134.237.61	86400s	(1d)
auth02.ns.eircom.net	IN	A	159.134.237.59	86400s	(1d)
auth03.ns.eircom.net	IN	A	159.134.191.34	86400s	(1d)

auth02.ns.eircom.net [159.134.237.59] returned an authoritative response in 141 ms:
Answer records
name	class	type	data	time to live
gardaclub.ie	IN	SOA	
server:	auth01.ns.eircom.net
email:	hostmaster@eircom.net
serial:	2005072701
refresh:	28800
retry:	7200
expire:	604800
minimum ttl:	86400
	86400s	(1d)
gardaclub.ie	IN	NS	auth02.ns.eircom.net	86400s	(1d)
gardaclub.ie	IN	NS	auth03.ns.eircom.net	86400s	(1d)
gardaclub.ie	IN	NS	auth01.ns.eircom.net	86400s	(1d)
gardaclub.ie	IN	MX	
preference:	10
exchange:	mail.gardaclub.ie
	86400s	(1d)
gardaclub.ie	IN	MX	
preference:	11
exchange:	relay.netspeed.ie
	86400s	(1d)
Authority records
[none]
Additional records
name	class	type	data	time to live
auth01.ns.eircom.net	IN	A	159.134.237.61	86400s	(1d)
auth02.ns.eircom.net	IN	A	159.134.237.59	86400s	(1d)
auth03.ns.eircom.net	IN	A	159.134.191.34	86400s	(1d)
mail.gardaclub.ie	IN	A	83.70.118.118	86400s	(1d)

I can't see where that eircom guy is getting his info from.

dahamsta · 03-08-2005 4:12pm

They're in the clear on 'www.gardaclub.ie', but not 'gardaclub.ie'. However the host is also at fault for advising the OP to point a CNAME, and then not adding a ServerAlias record to the VirtualHost.

EDIT: Sorry, advice. OP, get onto Eircom and ask them to add an identical CNAME for gardaclub.ie. Then get onto the host and ask them to add a ServerAlias for both gardaclub.ie and www.gardaclub.ie to the VirtualHost for your primary domain.

adam

seamus · 03-08-2005 4:14pm

dahamsta wrote:

They're in the clear on 'www.gardaclub.ie', but not 'gardaclub.ie'.

Ding! I knew I was missing something.

sticker · 03-08-2005 6:38pm

dahamsta wrote:

They're in the clear on 'www.gardaclub.ie', but not 'gardaclub.ie'. However the host is also at fault for advising the OP to point a CNAME, and then not adding a ServerAlias record to the VirtualHost.

EDIT: Sorry, advice. OP, get onto Eircom and ask them to add an identical CNAME for gardaclub.ie. Then get onto the host and ask them to add a ServerAlias for both gardaclub.ie and www.gardaclub.ie to the VirtualHost for your primary domain.

adam

Cheers guys - appreciate the help! I'll get onto them asap.

sticker · 04-08-2005 11:14am

Eircom have come back to me with this:

Conor,

We are unable to point this particular record to a cname. What we have
added is an A record that points gardaclub.ie to 206.251.184.10.

Regards,
Mike
eircom net
DNS Requests Team

Will this suffice from their end?! (allowing for the fact that DirectNic add a ServerAlias for both gardaclub.ie and www.gardaclub.ie to the VirtualHost for the primary domain as Adam instructed)

mneylon · 04-08-2005 11:21am

Eircom generally do not create A records for domain.tld as they are following one of the RFCs (can't remember which one)

dahamsta · 04-08-2005 11:56am

Indeed, they're right and I was wrong, you can't add a CNAME for a hostname that already has record (and since SOA is a record, you can't do it for an SLD, period). Bind just won't load the zone, and rightly so. An A record is fine though, since you'll need to make changes (to the VirtualHost) if/when you move anyway. Sorry for the confusion. I'm blonde, what can you do?

adam

sticker · 04-08-2005 12:44pm

dahamsta wrote:

Indeed, they're right and I was wrong, you can't add a CNAME for a hostname that already has record (and since SOA is a record, you can't do it for an SLD, period). Bind just won't load the zone, and rightly so. An A record is fine though, since you'll need to make changes (to the VirtualHost) if/when you move anyway. Sorry for the confusion. I'm blonde, what can you do?

adam

No worries! So have Eircom done all they can? Is the problem now with Direct Nic?

dahamsta · 04-08-2005 12:47pm

sticker wrote:

No worries! So have Eircom done all they can? Is the problem now with Direct Nic?

It would seem so.

[abeecher@johnhoop abeecher]$ dig gardaclub.ie A

; <<>> DiG 9.2.4 <<>> gardaclub.ie A
;; global options: printcmd
;; Got answer:
;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 17407
;; flags: qr aa rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 1, AUTHORITY: 3, ADDITIONAL: 3

;; QUESTION SECTION:
;gardaclub.ie. IN A

;; ANSWER SECTION:
gardaclub.ie. 86400 IN A 206.251.184.10

;; AUTHORITY SECTION:
gardaclub.ie. 82259 IN NS auth01.ns.eircom.net.
gardaclub.ie. 82259 IN NS auth02.ns.eircom.net.
gardaclub.ie. 82259 IN NS auth03.ns.eircom.net.

;; ADDITIONAL SECTION:
auth01.ns.eircom.net. 86496 IN A 159.134.237.61
auth02.ns.eircom.net. 86496 IN A 159.134.237.59
auth03.ns.eircom.net. 86496 IN A 159.134.191.34

;; Query time: 136 msec
;; SERVER: 207.218.192.38#53(207.218.192.38)
;; WHEN: Thu Aug 4 12:50:21 2005
;; MSG SIZE rcvd: 182

sticker · 05-08-2005 9:18am

dahamsta wrote:

It would seem so.

I'll be honest with you, I'm lost looking at that code! I recieved this from Direct Nic this am:

Date: 08/04/05 11:13am
From: DavidC
Hi Conor,
I think I may not have explained something quite as well as I should have in my previous reply. When you are pointing your .ie domain to a site hosted with us, it has to pointed using a redirection (not a CNAME, because we do not add Virtual Hosts in the wasy you have asked about). Please ask your host company if they can point your .ie site to the .com domain using a redirection (with or without frames). If you were hosting the .com domain yourself and had created a dns record for www.westmanstown.com pointing it to an IP address, then you could have gotten your .ie domain pointed there using a CNAME. But that is not possible because of our shared IP hosting.
Regards,
David
directNIC.com

It's getting a little frustrating now, I've a client who's fairly patient, but I would have thought that this kind of process happens many many times a day inside companies like DirectNic & Eircom.

Are DirectNic sorta giving up the ghost with this or are they powerless to do anything with shared IP hosting?!

Sorry from dragging this thread out, really appreciate all your input and help, just wanna get this situation closed!

mneylon · 05-08-2005 9:29am

Sticker

The problem is not with Eircom it's with the other lot you are using.

Get proper hosting for your IE domain and you won't have this issue.

dahamsta · 05-08-2005 9:47am

DirectNIC's first reply was very misleading, he seemed to be suggesting that if you set up the DNS, they'd set up the VirtualHost for you. Ultimately though, he's saying now that they don't do that, and there's no point arguing with them about it. (Although you should give them a good tongue-lashing for not being clear first day, and that people in the know were misled too.)

As blacknight says, you need to get the site to a host, any baseline package from a reputable host will offer redirection, in fact some will offer it if you just transfer the domain to them. Take your pick of myself, blacknight or steve-hosting36, one of us will be able to sort you out.

adam

sticker · 05-08-2005 12:51pm

It's a pity, I've five sites currently being hosted with DirectNic and never had a problem with them...

I'll talk to the client and maybe suggest we go elsewhere (don't fancy going with Eircom to host!)

Any suggestions of a reasonably priced hosting service that I CAN re-direct the .ie domain to?!

Thanks again...

dahamsta · 05-08-2005 12:59pm

No no no, this isn't about the TO, it's about the FROM. You can leave the sites you have where they are, you just need to get gardaclub.ie onto a host or registrar that offers redirects -- any host that's been in business for more than a minute and a half will know what that is. DirectNIC probably do it, but you're probably better off with an Irish host, because those foreign johnnies generally don't know their IE from their elbow.

Asking for recommendations here is pointless, most of the people that've posted in the thread are hosts and aren't allow pimp themselves (and rightly so).

adam

mneylon · 05-08-2005 1:21pm

dahamsta wrote:

most of the people that've posted in the thread are hosts and aren't allow pimp themselves (and rightly so).

But we can try

Seriously though. Adam is right.
A lot of the US hosts seems to have issues with handling simple DNS settings.

sticker · 05-08-2005 7:16pm

dahamsta wrote:

No no no, this isn't about the TO, it's about the FROM. You can leave the sites you have where they are, you just need to get gardaclub.ie onto a host or registrar that offers redirects -- any host that's been in business for more than a minute and a half will know what that is. DirectNIC probably do it, but you're probably better off with an Irish host, because those foreign johnnies generally don't know their IE from their elbow.

Asking for recommendations here is pointless, most of the people that've posted in the thread are hosts and aren't allow pimp themselves (and rightly so).

adam

Cheers Adam, I did intend the keep my already established sites with DirectNic - Didn't mean to suggest otherwise!! I was mearly saying it's a shame, I was fairly impressed with them as hosts up to a week ago...!

Check PM btw...

sticker · 05-08-2005 10:34pm

Interesting:
I mailed DirectNic asking for a yes or no answer that they could sucessfully manage a redirection from a .ie

This was their responce:

Date: 08/05/05 03:27pm
From: DavidC

Hi Conor,
You may want to host your .ie domain with a host provider rather than try to point it the site hosted on directNIC. Since they cannot use the CNAME format to point your .ie to the .com, and since I don;t know whether they can do a direct redirection to the URL, then I can't say for sure that they are able to do it. So if you want a Yes or a No, I can give you a No, but not a definite Yes.
So with that, you may just want to directly host your .ie.
Regards,
David
directNIC.com

dahamsta · 05-08-2005 10:55pm

sticker wrote:

Since they cannot use the CNAME format to point your .ie to the .com

I'm afraid David's just plain talking out his butt now. A CNAME is just an alias for a domain, it points to the other hostname, which in turn points to the IP address. If DirectNIC can't handle the A record, they can't handle the CNAME, period.

What you'll be doing is simply redirecting the existing domain name, on another server, to the site hosted on DirectNIC. In other words, when someone types in gardaclub.ie or www.gardaclub.ie, their server will push the user to www.westmanstown.com. DirectNIC has nothing to do with it, and nothing needs to happen on their side to handle it, since the user will to all intents and purposes be visiting www.westmanstown.com.

Now if you want the gardaclub.ie hostname to appear in the address bar, that's a different story. It can be spoofed with frame redirection, but that's a cheap hack when you get right down to it (I can do it, but I don't like doing it). Otherwise you'd need to move the both the primary and secondary site to a host that'll add that VirtualHost I mentioned earlier.

If you don't mind redirection, the job is oxo. And don't talk to DirectNIC about it any more, they're just annoying me now.

adam

sticker · 06-08-2005 10:13am

dahamsta wrote:

I'm afraid David's just plain talking out his butt now. A CNAME is just an alias for a domain, it points to the other hostname, which in turn points to the IP address. If DirectNIC can't handle the A record, they can't handle the CNAME, period.

What you'll be doing is simply redirecting the existing domain name, on another server, to the site hosted on DirectNIC. In other words, when someone types in gardaclub.ie or www.gardaclub.ie, their server will push the user to www.westmanstown.com. DirectNIC has nothing to do with it, and nothing needs to happen on their side to handle it, since the user will to all intents and purposes be visiting www.westmanstown.com.

Now if you want the gardaclub.ie hostname to appear in the address bar, that's a different story. It can be spoofed with frame redirection, but that's a cheap hack when you get right down to it (I can do it, but I don't like doing it). Otherwise you'd need to move the both the primary and secondary site to a host that'll add that VirtualHost I mentioned earlier.

If you don't mind redirection, the job is oxo. And don't talk to DirectNIC about it any more, they're just annoying me now.

adam

Cheers Adam, will look into it...

sticker · 06-08-2005 5:17pm

If DirectNic are the problem here, maybe the simplest solution is to see how much Eircom will charge to host the site also. The client has paid for www.gardaclub.ie for three years so this may very well be the only option remaining.

mneylon · 06-08-2005 5:27pm

Why are you insisting on using Directnic?

axer · 06-08-2005 5:36pm

Why go with eircom for hosting? they are not exactly the best at that type of thing.

dahamsta · 06-08-2005 7:23pm

Not exactly the cheapest either. By a long shot...

rsynnott · 07-08-2005 12:40pm

The best option would be to use a proper web host. DirectNIC is not a proper web host. Just about any web host will be able to handle this.

sticker · 07-08-2005 2:24pm

rsynnott wrote:

The best option would be to use a proper web host. DirectNIC is not a proper web host. Just about any web host will be able to handle this.

What's another cheap option (setting aside pimping!) for hosting locally?

DirectNic are charging me €15 for temp domain www.westmanstown.com and €15 for bannerless hosting...

Domain Re-Direction - !?!?!!

Comments