automatically redirect to "www."

spacebar · - Joined: 17 Jan 2006 Posts: 13

I searched for this 5 times, with different key words, but I didn't find any answer to my question.

When a user types mozilla,org they are automatically redirect to www,mozilla,org. How do I do this for my site? I don't want people seeing "h**p://mydomain.com" i want them to see "h**p://www.mydomain.com"

Would you mind helping me figure this one out? Thanks

--
edit: I have reg'd with godaddy.com and I am using the free Abyss webserver

AbyssUnderground · - Joined: 31 Dec 2004 Posts: 3855

You should be able to make a CNAME with an astrix (*) in it. Make it point to "www".

EG:

Subdomain name | Type | Data
www | A record | your IP
* | CNAME | www

this should redirect to www. It does on my host, however it doesnt add the www to the domain name, simply directs it to the host on www.
_________________
Andy (AbyssUnderground) (previously The Inquisitor)
www.abyssunderground.co.uk

spacebar · - Joined: 17 Jan 2006 Posts: 13

Inquisitor: what is the different between web forwarding and CNAME (alias)? They seem like they both redirect me to X, where X is another domain (subdomain) or IP address.

AbyssUnderground · - Joined: 31 Dec 2004 Posts: 3855

CNAME links the domain to the address where as forwarding simply forwards to the other domain.
_________________
Andy (AbyssUnderground) (previously The Inquisitor)
www.abyssunderground.co.uk

spacebar · - Joined: 17 Jan 2006 Posts: 13

So is this to say CNAME is managed by the DNS, and web redirect managed by the web browser? I notice that when using CNAME the "back" button on the browser doesn't work (it doesn't have history), but when I used the webredirect is *did* have history.

AbyssUnderground · - Joined: 31 Dec 2004 Posts: 3855

That is correct for some domain name providers yes.
_________________
Andy (AbyssUnderground) (previously The Inquisitor)
www.abyssunderground.co.uk

spacebar · - Joined: 17 Jan 2006 Posts: 13

My domain is new, so I'm still waiting the 48 hours (like 44 hours now) for it to be live. But how did i do?

Hopefully, this will make anyone that types "fulloffacts.com" to see "www.fulloffacts.com" instead

AbyssUnderground · - Joined: 31 Dec 2004 Posts: 3855

Well from the looks of it, its fine. Just wait the 48 hours for it to take effect and you can see.
_________________
Andy (AbyssUnderground) (previously The Inquisitor)
www.abyssunderground.co.uk

spacebar · - Joined: 17 Jan 2006 Posts: 13

I waited 48 hours, and it didn't work. It doesn't redirect visitors to "www.mydomain.com." I've contacted customer support and they told me that they weren't able to provide me instructions on Advanced DNS control. So much for support...

I'm still working on getting this damn thing to work. The inquisitor suggested to add a "*" to CNAME, but this doesn't automatically append a "www." to the beginning of the domain name. This may seem trivial, but its just a personal goal to get this thing operational.

TIA
spacebar

AbyssUnderground · - Joined: 31 Dec 2004 Posts: 3855

I dont see why you want it to do this anyway. Is there any reason why?
_________________
Andy (AbyssUnderground) (previously The Inquisitor)
www.abyssunderground.co.uk

Anonymoose · - Joined: 09 Sep 2003 Posts: 2192

You're misunderstanding what you can use DNS for. When you type Mozilla.org you see www.mozilla.org in your browser because they return a 301 error code which tells your browser to go to www.mozilla.org instead. It isn't DNS related.

--18:49:13-- http://mozilla.org/
=> `index.html'
Resolving mozilla.org... 207.126.111.202
Connecting to mozilla.org|207.126.111.202|:80... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response...
HTTP/1.1 301 Moved Permanently
Date: Wed, 18 Jan 2006 18:48:48 GMT
Server: Apache/1.3.27 (Unix) (Red-Hat/Linux) mod_ssl/2.8.12 OpenSSL/0.9.6b mod_perl/1.26
Location: http://www.mozilla.org/
Connection: close
Content-Type: text/html; charset=iso-8859-1
Location: http://www.mozilla.org/ [following]
--18:49:13-- http://www.mozilla.org/
=> `index.html'
Resolving www.mozilla.org... 207.126.111.226
Connecting to www.mozilla.org|207.126.111.226|:80... connected.
<snip>

If you want people to go to www.fulloffacts.com instead of fulloffacts.com you should set up a PHP (or your language of choice) page to return 301 and redirect visitors browsers.
_________________

"Invent an idiot proof webserver and they'll invent a better idiot..."

spacebar · - Joined: 17 Jan 2006 Posts: 13

Anonymoose: thanks for that. I explains everything I wanted to know. What did you use to view those commands?

Anonymoose · - Joined: 09 Sep 2003 Posts: 2192

Glad this cleared things up for you.

The output is from Wget, a command line download tool. The specific switch was -S, to show server responses - however, you should be able to find a more friendly tool for pretty much any browser which would offer you the same information. I think the Web Developer extension for Firefox offers something similar, and I'd guess there are similar tools for IE and Opera.
_________________

"Invent an idiot proof webserver and they'll invent a better idiot..."

spacebar · - Joined: 17 Jan 2006 Posts: 13

And a "thank you!" to inquisitor, too :D Thanks for all the help!

Tom Chapman · - Joined: 09 Jul 2005 Posts: 933 Location: Australia