| Bill Jonas on Fri, 22 Feb 2002 07:00:13 +0100 |
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On Wed, Feb 20, 2002 at 02:25:09PM -0500, Doug Crompton wrote: > Everything I read talks about using CNAMES when doing virtual hosting. I > cannot seem to get this to work and I do not fully understand it. Keep in mind that DNS and Apache are distinct (although obviously interrelated) subjects. The six most common types of DNS records one deals with are SOA, NS, MX, A, PTR, and CNAME. (These are all in the IN, or internet, class. There are other classes, but they're rather uncommon, and if you needed them you'd probably know anyway.) SOA is the "start of authority" -- this record contains the name of the primary nameserver, email address of the person responsible for the domain, the serial number, how often to cache and refresh, and the like. NS records list the nameservers. MX records tell which machines handle mail for the domain. (From "Mail eXchanger".) A records are the regular hostname-to-IP-address mappings. PTR (PoinTeR) records are the reverse IP-address-to-hostname mappings. Finally, the CNAME (Canonical NAME) is sort of like a symlink for DNS. It basically says, "This record is defined, but the canonical name is this other hostname; look up its A record and use that instead." Try doing lookups on www.yahoo.com and www.microsoft.com. They both use Akamai and the www.<domain>.com is a CNAME record which points to www.<domain>.akadns.net, which has multiple A records defined. (Having multiple A records is also known as round-robin DNS.) > So my question is.. is this an alright way to do it? Why do I need CNAMES? > Once I do the above and load it I can (locally) access the new domain > name, send mail, attach to port 80 etc. I have not yet registered the name > but once I do I expect that externally I will be able to do the same. If I'm properly understanding what you're saying, this is a perfectly valid way of doing it. If you look up www.laserhen.net (my wife's domain), you'll notice that its CNAME is laserhen.net, which has the same A record as billjonas.com. As long as you use an HTTP1.1-compliant web browser (I'm not aware of any that *aren't*), you'll be able to view different content at both sites, even though it's being served from the same IP address. I'm not sure if this answered your question, but I hope it helps. -- Bill Jonas * bill@billjonas.com * http://www.billjonas.com/ Developer/SysAdmin for hire! See http://www.billjonas.com/resume.html Attachment:
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