subdomains

[RV Guy]

I just set up a test SUBdomain to see how all this works (will be needing this in the very near future).  The domain name is rvnetlinx.net, and I set up sales.rvnetlinx.net as the sub.  it seems to work fine and when I go to sales.rvnetlinx.net it brings up the default index.php page in the root.  But, when it does this the web address bar changes to "www.rvnetlinx.net".  How do I keep the web address at sales.rvnetlinx.net?

Thanks for any and all help.
RV Guy

[Brad]

I am not seeing that. When I go to sales.rvnetlinx.net I get a directory listing of sales.rvnetlinx.net and the address bar stays the same.

thanks

Brad

[RV Guy]

Thanks, Brad.  I am learning more about these subdomains.  I was using FireFox browser and it brought up the main site in the root, as I described.  But when I tried using the IE browser, I saw what you saw ?  Sheesh!

Apparently when I set up the "sales" subdomain, it created a directory on the server called "sales" - didn't know that and found it quite by accident this morning.  That's where sales.rvnetlinx.net goes when called.  I put out a test page in that directory, and it seems to work.  Duh!

But what I want to happen is have sales.rvnetlinx.net go to the main site in the root directory, and still keep the sales.rvnetlinx.net web address.  I tried a redirerct of the subdomain through cpanel and it works, but changes the web address to www.rvnetlinx.net.  I also tried putting in a redirect right into that test page in the sales directory, and it also works but also changes the web address to www.

So, is there any way I can have sales.rvnetlinx.net go to the index.php page in the root dir and still keep the sales.rvnetlinx.net web address in the browser?  My reasoning is more for branding purposes.  I'm developing an application that a few diffferent clients will use, and will have a more "generic" top-level domain name.  Thus, the use of this new app would be clientA.genericname.com, clientB.genericname.com, etc.  Obviously I don't want to have a copy of this same app in directories clientA, clientB, etc.  Thoughts?

Thanks for the help and have a blessed day.

RV Guy

[AlphaWolf]

You could try parking it, but I am not sure subdomains can be parked.

Other than that, I am not sure what you want to do can be done.  *I* would register the domain name sales-rvnetlinx.net and park that. ;-)

Peace

Wolf

[RV Guy]

Bummer ... I guess I have no choice but to come up with an alternative solution.  Thx for the response.

RV Guy

[Brad]

You could always use a redirect in an index.html file.  But if you are doing this for SEO reasons or worry about SEO that is not recommended.

Brad

[RV Guy]

Brad,

As I mentioned in an earlier post a redirect, both through cpanel and directly in an .html page, does in fact work.  But it does change the URL to www.rvnetlinx.com instead of keeping sales.rvnetlinx.com, which kinda defeats what I'm trying to do here.  SEO is not a concern, so if I can come up with some way to bring up the root site and still keep the subdomain URL, that would be fantastic.

Thx for the post and have a blessed day.

RV Guy

[Brad]

You are a reseller, right?

Try this.

Go to your WHM and use the DNS editor to point the sub to the main domain.

Now this could break things, so write down what it was and what changes you make.  But I am thinking it might work.

Brad

[AlphaWolf]

Hey RV - just curious to see if you found a work around on this?

peace

Wolf

[RV Guy]

I went out to the WHM DNS editor, as Brad suggested, but the subdomain is not showing on Edit DNS, only the top-level domains.  I suspect I may have needed to Add a DNS zone, but as I am not 100% sure of how to do this, along with Brad's comments of "now this could break things", it kinda stopped me short.

So in answer to your question, no I haven't figured out a workaround quite yet.  But it's not serious enough where I need to be risking breaking domains and accounts.  I'll figure something out.  I like your previous idea about just registering a new domain name and parking it.  The drawback is that I need to register a new domain name every time I want to add a new client.  Subdomains, however, are free, can be added and deleted easily as needed and I can add any sub name I want to.

Oh well, nobody said everything was going to be easy.  Thx for checking in and if I come up with some novel way to handle this, I'll be sure to post it here and maybe help someone else out in this same pickle.  Have a blessed day.

RV Guy

[AlphaWolf]

Hmmmm... something IS goofy because the subdomain has to show in the DNS record in order for it to work.

Let me take a look at it.

peace

Wolf

[AlphaWolf]

sales & www.sales are in your DNS record in WHM.  They use IP pointing.

What Brad suggested would mean you would add CNAME records for sales & www.sales pointing to the main domain. (watch your syntax - there IS a . at the end in a CName record)

Try it.  It will only break sales, not anything else, so it cant hurt to try.

peace

Wolf

[RV Guy]

Good news and bad news.  Good news is that it didn't break anything.  The bad news is that this still doesn't work.  Now, to delete that sales cname record, I would go into Delete DNS Zone, select rvnetlinx.net and click "Delete" ... and I assume it will bring up all the DNS zone records for me to "selectively" delete, rather than delete all zone dns for rvnetlinx.net, corrrect?

RV Guy

[AlphaWolf]

Um no do NOT select delete DNS zone... that is one where you would have to, by hand, recreate the zone.

Delete the entries in Edit DNS Zone

[AlphaWolf]

Um... wait

did you give the DNS time to propagate?  Did you flush your DNS cache to be SURE it didnt work?

When I go there I get:

This is a test of the
American Subdomain System !!

Which I assume is NOT what you want to have happen.

[AlphaWolf]

Looking at your DNS record... I *assume* you already removed the CName records for sales?  Because there ARE none in there.  If you didnt remove them, they werent added correctly.

peace

Wolf

[RV Guy]

well, I did not remove them and you are right, they're not there.  I went to Edit DNS, and in the space below "Add new entries below this line" I entered 2 lines:

under Domain I entered "sales"
for Rec Type I selected CNAME
in the box next to CNAME I entered rvnetlinx.net.  (with the period)

I also added a line for www.sales
Then I clicked on "Save"

It came back with a listing of the zone recs, and the last two lines in the display were:

sales   14400   IN   CNAME   rvnetlinx.net.   sales.rvnetlinx.net: CNAME and other data
www.sales   14400   IN   CNAME   rvnetlinx.net.   www.sales.rvnetlinx.net: CNAME and other data

And again they were not there when I went back to the Edit screen.  So, what did I do wrong?

RV Guy

[AlphaWolf]

*looks puzzled* I am not sure.

When I get home tonight do you mind if I try it?

peace

Wolf

[RV Guy]

Don't know if you'll get this in time, but be my guest.  The only thing I ask is that you let me know what I did wrong once you nail it.  Muchos gracias.

RV Guy

[AlphaWolf]

yep - it might not be something u r doing wrong

i will try it

[AlphaWolf]

puzzling... it wont take.

I want to try something but it may screw up and you will then have to delete the subdomain in CPanel and start over.

if you are ok with this, i will try.

peace

Wolf

[AlphaWolf]

Hey RV

I'm going out for a bit.  let me know if you are willing to do the following:

1) delete the subdomain in Cpanel
2) recreate it in Cpanel

Let me know when you do this, if you want, and i have another trick up my sleeve that *might* work.  If you do, I need you to explicitely give me permission to delete the subdomain in your cpanel during my 'fiddling' if necessary.

We don't touch folks files normally - just tell them what to do.  But I think my logic for solving this is sound, and if it is, I will need permission to delete the subdirectory if necessary.

peace

Wolf

[RV Guy]

Sorry I wasn't on this board last night.  I have deleted the "sales" subdomain, but have not recreated it.  I give you permission to have at it, create a new one and play with it as you need.  My question, though, is why is adding that CNAME not working?  Problems in WHM?  Keep me posted.

RV Guy

[AlphaWolf]

Nope not a problem in WHM. Probably problem in DNS binding logic which is what I am going to try and see if doing something else works.

peace

Wolf

[AlphaWolf]

Ok i made a change...can we let this sit for 48 hours or so to see if the DNS propagates?