URL / DNS Aliasing

[mrbusy]

My company has recently comissioned a web designer to update our rather basic website and this seems to have thrown up a problem with our DNS setup.

Our domain currently resides on the DNS server of our ISP and we have added several hosts and changed the MX records. At the moment the A record for

http://www.domain.com

points to some web space we got when we originally registered the domain with a low cost provider.

The web designer wants to move the website to a sub-directory of her website but still wants the URL to read

http://www.domain.com

when you visit it rather than

http://www.designer.co.uk/customers/company/index.html.

Now, in order to do this the designer thinks we need to move the domain to her ISP allowing the domain to be aliased.

My question is how does this work? I have a domain of my own that is aliased to a subfolder on another website / domain, but I dont know how it is done.

Is there some server side app that needs to be runnig ro can it be done in DNS? I dont want to move the domain to an unknown, and small, ISP just to have this work. At the moment

http://www.domain.com

points to the IP address of another provider's server and that works fine....no aliasing required as far as I know. Im assuming they dont give an IP address to every client website, so can anyone tell me how this works?

As a last resport we have domain.com .net .org and .co.uk and my plan was to move one of those to the designers ISP and simply redirect our .com to that, but I would rather do it properly if I can.

 

[ProfFate]

Which web server is she using? I'm familiar with IIS, and I would use Host Headers. All you would have to do is change your DNS entry to point to her IP address. She would setup a new web site, using host headers for

http://www.domain.com.

This is how ISPs host multiple web sites with one IP address. I also hope this really what you want to do. If you change your DNS entry for

http://www.domain.com,

your web site is now completely on her site. I'm not sure why you would have to do this, if she is in the process of redesigning your site.

MikeL

 

[ChrisAC]

Your designer is talking rubbish! It doesn't matter who hosts the DNS as long as the A record for your website points to the correct box and the virtual server is correctly configured on that box. If she had control of your DNS she could only point the A record in the same way as you do now. DNS cannot point you at a particular directory on a web server. That is the job of the web server to determine from which directory it serves based upon the request from the client.

Sounds to me to be an excuse to try and get your DNS business as well.

Chris.


**********************
Chris Andrew, CCNA, CCSA
chris@iproute.co.uk
**********************

 

[dearingkr]

Both proffate and iproute are correct.

All you need to do is to have your

http://www.domain.com

host record point to whatever IP address your designer give you.

The rest is up to her. She is responsible for configuring her server to redirect to the proper subfolder/website based on the host header.

If she doesn't know how to do this, find yourself a new designer ASAP.

MCSE CCNA CCDA