CNAME question

agunther · October 22, 2006

I am looking into getting a pro account provided I can forward
store.mysite.com to smugmug while keeping
mysite.com and www.mysite.com running on my current host.
Sales tells me this is possible with CNAME records.
I have no ideas how this works though. I have my domain hosted at yahoo (not the website, just the domain).
Has anyone gotten this set up right with a yahoo domain?

EDIT I checked the yahoo domain control panel and I can set up a CNAME. But I would like store.mysite.com to show up in my browser instead of the smugmug address. will it work like that?

Andre

ivar · October 22, 2006

agunther wrote:

I am looking into getting a pro account provided I can forward
store.mysite.com to smugmug while keeping
mysite.com and www.mysite.com running on my current host.
Sales tells me this is possible with CNAME records.
I have no ideas how this works though. I have my domain hosted at yahoo (not the website, just the domain).
Has anyone gotten this set up right with a yahoo domain?

EDIT I checked the yahoo domain control panel and I can set up a CNAME. But I would like store.mysite.com to show up in my browser instead of the smugmug address. will it work like that?

Andre

Hi Andre, welcome to dgrin

You can go here for instructions on how to set up your yahoo CNAME: http://www.smugmug.com/help/yahoo.mg

If you have any problems setting it up, we'll be happy to help. Email your username/password if you don't mind, to help@smugmug.com and we will take care of it for you

agunther · October 22, 2006

ivar wrote:

Hi Andre, welcome to dgrin

You can go here for instructions on how to set up your yahoo CNAME: http://www.smugmug.com/help/yahoo.mg

If you have any problems setting it up, we'll be happy to help. Email your username/password if you don't mind, to help@smugmug.com and we will take care of it for you

Hello Ivar,

thanks for the answer and the welcome. I believe we emailed before.
I have seen that page, but it seems to be for forwarding my entire domain to smugmug. I really only want to forward the subdomain.
Currently I have my primary and secondary DNS servers pointed to Site5 (my hosting company).
I was a little insecure about what happens if I add a CNAME like this:

I am also somewhat confused where exactly to forward to.
I was thinking about using these settings:

Source: store.mysite.com
Destination: useraccount.smugmug.com

Not sure if this would work (looks different from the example) and if that will leave www.mysite.com and mysite.com untouched.

Andy · October 22, 2006

agunther wrote:

Hello Ivar,

thanks for the answer and the welcome. I believe we emailed before.
I have seen that page, but it seems to be for forwarding my entire domain to smugmug. I really only want to forward the subdomain.
Currently I have my primary and secondary DNS servers pointed to Site5 (my hosting company).
I was a little insecure about what happens if I add a CNAME like this:

I am also somewhat confused where exactly to forward to.
I was thinking about using these settings:

Source: store.mysite.com
Destination: useraccount.smugmug.com

Not sure if this would work (looks different from the example) and if that will leave www.mysite.com and mysite.com untouched.

Hi, best is to send us your details, we can go to yahoo and make it all happen for you no problemo - when you wake on Monday it'll probably be done. Put ATTN Ivar in the email, send to help@smugmug.com

agunther · October 22, 2006

Andy wrote:

Hi, best is to send us your details, we can go to yahoo and make it all happen for you no problemo - when you wake on Monday it'll probably be done. Put ATTN Ivar in the email, send to help@smugmug.com

Wow. That sounds good. Do you mean I need to send my yahoo account information (user, passwd)?
I am just waiting for this to be sorted out before commiting to my pro account

Andre

Andy · October 22, 2006

agunther wrote:

Wow. That sounds good. Do you mean I need to send my yahoo account information (user, passwd)?

Do not fear, we do this all the time.

agunther · October 22, 2006

Andy wrote:

Do not fear, we do this all the time.

. Allright. Email is on its way.
Can't wait

I Simonius · October 23, 2006

agunther wrote:

I am looking into getting a pro account provided I can forward
store.mysite.com to smugmug while keeping
mysite.com and www.mysite.com running on my current host.
Sales tells me this is possible with CNAME records.
I have no ideas how this works though. I have my domain hosted at yahoo (not the website, just the domain).
Has anyone gotten this set up right with a yahoo domain?

EDIT I checked the yahoo domain control panel and I can set up a CNAME. But I would like store.mysite.com to show up in my browser instead of the smugmug address. will it work like that?

Andre

I asked my name hosts about CNAME and they said they didnt do it but wwere thinking of trying to upgrade to be able to

It just goes to show you really have no idea of whom you're dealing with when you get these firms to register you and you pay the same money as for t6hose that DO have all the facilities

I mean you'd need to be a genius ( well alright - just nnot a newbie dweeb like me) to suss all this stuff out before you sign up with them!

Andy · October 23, 2006

Simon King wrote:

I asked my name hosts about CNAME and they said they didnt do it but wwere thinking of trying to upgrade to be able to

It just goes to show you really have no idea of whom you're dealing with when you get these firms to register you and you pay the same money as for t6hose that DO have all the facilities

I mean you'd need to be a genius ( well alright - just nnot a newbie dweeb like me) to suss all this stuff out before you sign up with them!

You can switch, painlessly - not sure if you know that

I Simonius · October 23, 2006

Andy wrote:

You can switch, painlessly - not sure if you know that

but to where?

and is it ever REALLY painless?

and won't I lose all the money I paid so far

and (worry worry worry..)

But seriously - how do I chose wheerre to move to?

agunther · October 23, 2006

So ivan did add the record on my domain (i think this morning). However it still has no effect. Usually I see changes on my yahoo domains almost immediately (maybe because i live so close to them).

Andy · October 24, 2006

Simon King wrote:

but to where?

and is it ever REALLY painless?

So they say!

and won't I lose all the money I paid so far

probably.

and (worry worry worry..)

But seriously - how do I chose wheerre to move to?[/QUOTE]IMO you can't go wrong with Joker or GoDaddy.

Andy · October 24, 2006

agunther wrote:

So ivan did add the record on my domain (i think this morning). However it still has no effect. Usually I see changes on my yahoo domains almost immediately (maybe because i live so close to them).

Hi, Ivar did indeed. It can take 24-48 hours though, and we've no control over that, sorry!

agunther · October 24, 2006

Andy wrote:

Hi, Ivar did indeed. It can take 24-48 hours though, and we've no control over that, sorry!

Oops. Sorry for the name confusion.
Yeah I know it can take a while but it has been over 24 hours and since I am right on top of yahoo headquarters I can usually see the changes instantaneously.
I will let you know in another 24hr, but my guess is that something is wrong.
How does the DNS affect this? Right now my DNS are those of my webhosting company.

agunther · October 24, 2006

Andy wrote:

IMO you can't go wrong with Joker or GoDaddy.

Well, I have never heard about Joker.
If you EVER plan to register a new domain at Godaddy, you'd better be sure about it. I have heard from people who did domain searches on Godaddy and when they were ready to purchase a few days later Godaddy had already snatched the domain themself, so they had to backorder it from Godaddy for way more.
I usually use domainsbot.com to research domain names and only when I am absolutely sure about it register it at Godaddy in one try.

Andy · October 24, 2006

agunther wrote:

How does the DNS affect this? Right now my DNS are those of my webhosting company.

If it's not working right in 24hrs, please allow us to look at it for you. Send mail to help@smugmug.com with the details.

agunther · October 25, 2006

Andy wrote:

If it's not working right in 24hrs, please allow us to look at it for you. Send mail to help@smugmug.com with the details.

Email sent. Its been close to 48h now. I guess it isn't as easy after all.

Andy · October 25, 2006

agunther wrote:

Email sent. Its been close to 48h now. I guess it isn't as easy after all.

Hang on, I'll look into it right now.

Andy · October 25, 2006

agunther wrote:

Email sent. Its been close to 48h now. I guess it isn't as easy after all.

Hi, you'll have to contact SBC Yahoo. We've done it properly, I checked. You can see here, that the cname is set up:

agunther · October 25, 2006

Andy wrote:

Hi, you'll have to contact SBC Yahoo. We've done it properly, I checked. You can see here, that the cname is set up:

Oh damn. As a general rule about yahoo domains, don't call yahoo domains. I have had my experience with them:
http://www.aguntherphotography.com/node/1696
I guess this will lead to another multiple hour session with some guy in india who doesn't have a remote idea what I want. :cry

Been there before.

Yahoo really sucks badly. I believe the problem is they completely ignore all CNAME settings (my domain is not even hosted with yahoo, even though it shows yahoo ip address). Makes me wonder if that has anything to do with my DNS setup.

Thanks for checking it out Andy!

EDIT: Is there anything that needs to be set up on my smugmug account? How does it know to go to my account? I see it going to www.smugmug.com. Sorry to bother you, but I'd rather stand two hours in the cold rain than calling yahoo.

Andy · October 25, 2006

agunther wrote:

EDIT: Is there anything that needs to be set up on my smugmug account? How does it know to go to my account? I see it going to www.smugmug.com. Sorry to bother you, but I'd rather stand two hours in the cold rain than calling yahoo.

store.ajguntherphotography.com is hitting this IP addy: 66.29.19.183 which is not SmugMug's. So, while the CNAME is indicated properly on their website (Yahoo's), it's not doing the job....

Your domain is set in your SmugMug control panel - so as soon as the CNAME is properly set up by SBC Yahoo, you'll be fine. Good luck.

agunther · October 25, 2006

Allright, I called Y! and they proposed a solution. Fortunately this time my call was answered by a guy in Texas and he was quite good (Y! is learning it seems).
Here is the problem (this might be of interest for others who host their domain at Y!, you might want to include that in your help document!):

As I suspected in previous posts, the DNS server settings is overruling any CNAME settings. Basically any request to my domain is automatically forwarded to my webhosts DNS server, that knows nothing else but to point it to my server.
Y! told me that I need to set the DNS servers to yahoo (yns1.yahoo.com, yns2.yahoo.com) and that I need to enter my server IP (the one you caught up there Andy) into the A-Record settings. Obviously this only works with static IP's (not a problem).
I am currently contemplating

if there could be any adverse effects (except that my domain could be unreachable for up to 72 hours :bash - 4k-5k potential loss in visitors) and how to proceed from here.
Anyways, I thought you should know. Would be nice to add a couple of lines to this document:
http://www.smugmug.com/help/yahoo.mg

agunther · October 25, 2006

All Wrong
Thank god I asked my webhost.
Since the DNS goes to their dns servers, I need to add the CNAME record in their DNS Zone File !!!!!!!
It doesn't matter if Yahoo or Bugaboo hosts my domain.

Its confusing if everyone says something different but now I seem to be well on my way

Michael Allen · November 2, 2006

Ok, now I'm confused too. I just got my yahoo account 3 days ago. I've tried setting my stuff up, with no success so far (I'm tring to patiently wait in hopes I've got it right). The IP you entered is from your page in the Arecord or was it smgmug's? Our are you adding a name server? Sorry about all the questions but this stuff is new to me.

I'm not tring to set just a store front up, just set up my domain if it matters.

Thanks,

BeachBill · November 2, 2006

Andy wrote:

IMO you can't go wrong with Joker or GoDaddy.

Sorry, to hijack this thread, however I cringed when I saw this. I'm glad you've had good experiences with both of them, I however deal with hundreds of domain registrants on a daily basis and these two (Joker and Godaddy) are ranked dead last in cluefulness, ethics and customer satisfaction. I can't count how many times I've had to help their customers resolve problems that shouldn't have existed in the first place if the registrar and their employees knew what they were doing.

I don't think I've mentioned it here before but my background is from the web hosting, DNS and domain registration industries. I'm a principle behind www.dnscentral.com and have been in the industry since way back when Netsol held a monopoly selling domains for $100 a pop.

agunther · November 5, 2006

O.K. Maybe I didn't make myself clear.

I have the domain hosted with yahoo but I am using the DNS entries to point to my webhosting company (which is not Yahoo anymore).

So it worked out, that I needed to make the changes in the DNS Zone files at my Webhost not the Domain Host !!!.

Now a request comes and is send to the dns servers which in turn know that this subdomain goes to my smugmug account. Makes sense doesn't it?

I think your help files need to be updated for the case that you are not hosting your site at the same place you are hosting your domain. I guess a lot of people do that to take advantage of special offers or when they switch hosts. Initially I was hosting with yahoo but switched for their lack of .htaccess support.

Mike: It all comes down who's dns servers you are using. If you are using the Yahoo DNS servers, just follow the steps outlined in the smugmug help pages. Otherwise don't mess with your yahoo domain account and change the settings on the actual dns server being used.

It works like a charm for me:
http://www.aguntherphotography.com goes to my webhost
http://store.aguntherphotography.com goes to my smugmug account (not completely configured yet)

BeachBill · November 5, 2006

agunther wrote:

I have the domain hosted with yahoo but I am using the DNS entries to point to my webhosting company (which is not Yahoo anymore).

So it worked out, that I needed to make the changes in the DNS Zone files at my Webhost not the Domain Host !!!.

Stepping in here with some clarifications... Your "domain host" is whoever you are using for DNS resolution, i.e. the organization who controls the DNS name servers you are using. Yahoo is your "domain registrar". I believe Smugmug adds a little bit of confusion to the issue because they have attempted to simplify their explanation of how it all works in their help files, and they probably assume the majority of people use their domain registrar as their domain host and in turn equate domain registrar to domain host.

It sounds like you have all of this DNS stuff figured out. Good job!

agunther · November 6, 2006

BeachBill wrote:

Your "domain host" is whoever you are using for DNS resolution, i.e. the organization who controls the DNS name servers you are using. Yahoo is your "domain registrar".

Um, yeah. I guess you are right. Thanks for the clarification.

agunther · April 19, 2007

Moving
Sorry to bring back this old thread. I am about to move to a VPS hosting and I cannot find the CNAME entry in my dns zone file.

Where do I send requests to:
http://store.aguntherphotography.com

It's not entirely clear anymore if that was some CNAME entry and if it has to go to the smugmug IP or where?

Thanks

BeachBill · April 19, 2007

agunther wrote:

Sorry to bring back this old thread. I am about to move to a VPS hosting and I cannot find the CNAME entry in my dns zone file.

Where do I send requests to:
http://store.aguntherphotography.com

It's not entirely clear anymore if that was some CNAME entry and if it has to go to the smugmug IP or where?

It is definitely a CNAME record:

% host store.aguntherphotography.com
store.aguntherphotography.com is a nickname for www.smugmug.com
www.smugmug.com is a nickname for hera.smugmug.com
hera.smugmug.com has address 63.81.134.23

You are using dns.site5.com and dns2.site5.com for your DNS. That is where you will find your zone file.

If you are trying to set up a DNS zone at your new host, the CNAME record for "store.aguntherphotography.com" or just plain old "store" (depending on how your new DNS host displays it) should alias to "www.smugmug.com"

agunther · April 19, 2007

Wonderful. Thanks for that. I will simply point them to your reply and let them set it up for me

Who knew that my site would knock down my shared host so fast

CNAME question

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