How to assign a new A record? What syntax do I use?

  • Resolved mmccauley

    (@mmccauley)


    13 years, 3 months ago

    I would like to apologize in advance for being such a noob with this DNS business! So here goes…

    Hi everyone, I’ve read Otto’s instructions on using the domain mapping plugin but there’s one very important part that he kind of glosses over:

    Step 4: Mapping the Domain

    There’s a bit of a prerequisite here before you do this. When you buy a new domain, you will need to edit its DNS settings to actually point to your server IP or CNAME or whatever you do to make the domain connect to your server. For me, I just give it a new A record with my server IP in it. Easy.

    Easy? Sorry but I don’t know what the syntax should be for this A record, and my host also has a bunch of stuff listed in the DNS manager for the domain I’m trying to map! So I don’t know if I’m supposed to add a new line or edit something that’s already there.

    I’m also not sure of what the correct settings are for Settings > Domain Mapping in the Network Admin menu. IP address or CNAME? And what should I use for the CNAME? The goal here is to create a wordpress network where each site will be crawled normally and individually by Google et. al.

    So here’s my situation, which is pretty basic:

    – iphoneappindex.com is the main WP install off of which all other network blogs will be built

    – appdevnetwork.iphoneappindex.com should be mapped to appdevnetwork.net (and https://www.appdevnetwork.net)

    Is iphoneappindex.net the CNAME?

    And below is what’s already in the DNS manager for appdevnetwork.net (I’m on a host called Webair, so no CPanel)… edit this record or add an entirely new line to it?

    $TTL 43200
@	IN	SOA	ns.webair.net.	webmaster.appdevnetwork.net. (
			2011110901	; Serial
			10800		; Refresh
			3600		; Retry
			604800		; Expire
			43200	)	; Minimum
	IN	NS	ns.webair.net.
	IN	NS	ns2.webair.net.
	IN	MX	10 filter.appdevnetwork.net.
	IN	A	74.XXX.XXX.5
ns1	IN	A	216.YYY.YYY.1
ns2	IN	A	216.YYY.YYY.6
www	IN	A	74.XXX.XXX.5
ftp	IN	A	74.XXX.XXX.5
mail	IN	A	216.ZZZ.ZZZ.1
filter	IN	A	216.ZZZ.ZZZ.236

    Thanks!

Viewing 6 replies - 1 through 6 (of 6 total)
  • Thread Starter mmccauley

    (@mmccauley)

    Formatting here is bad, so here’s an easier-to-read view of the existing DNS for appdevnetwork.net:

    https://iphoneappindex.com/dns.html

    Moderator Ipstenu (Mika Epstein)

    (@ipstenu)

    ?????? Advisor and Activist

    For reference, Otto’s tutorial: https://ottopress.com/2010/wordpress-3-0-multisite-domain-mapping-tutorial/

    Easy? Sorry but I don’t know what the syntax should be for this A record, and my host also has a bunch of stuff listed in the DNS manager for the domain I’m trying to map! So I don’t know if I’m supposed to add a new line or edit something that’s already there.

    Point your A record to the same as where iphoneappindex.com is – so in your case, 67.55.117.72

    Right now it’s pointed elsewhere: https://www.whatsmydns.net/#A/appdevnetwork.net

    I’m also not sure of what the correct settings are for Settings > Domain Mapping in the Network Admin menu. IP address or CNAME? And what should I use for the CNAME?

    EITHER use the IP OR the CNAME. It’s either/or. Pick one and go for it. You can use EITHER the IP of 67.55.117.72 OR you can use the domain name iphoneappindex.com

    Thread Starter mmccauley

    (@mmccauley)

    Thanks Ipstenu! But there are three different A records with that IP address on whatsmydns… do I change the one that’s not labeled at all (right above ns1), or www? Or both? The “ftp” one I’m assuming should be left alone.

    Right now I just changed www, and waiting for the change to propagate before I’ll know if it worked.

    Moderator Samuel Wood (Otto)

    (@otto42)

    www.ads-software.com Admin

    DNS is a complex subject. What you do and how you do it depends on a lot of factors. I’ll break down a couple of the simpler ones.

    An “A” record is also known as an “Address” record. Basically, it maps a name to an IP address. For example, I have an A record that connects ottopress.com to 64.90.33.22. You can have A records for subdomains too, like fake.example.com = 1.2.3.4.

    A “CNAME” record stands for “Canonical Name”. It maps a name to another name. You can use this to map a name to another name which will always be the correct address. CNAMEs are mostly used for subdomains. If you use Google Apps for your domain for example, you might make a CNAME for “mail” that points to “ghs.google.com”. This in itself is a CNAME for “ghs.l.google.com” which has an A record of 74.125.65.121. CNAMEs are useful if you have a lot of names that should all point to the same IP address, but one which might change from time to time. This lets you change that one named address and have all the CNAMEs pointing to it reflect the change too.

    The important thing here is that both of these are intended to help map a domain name to an IP address. An A record does it directly, a CNAME record does it by referring to some other record.

    That help any?

    Thread Starter mmccauley

    (@mmccauley)

    Thanks Otto, it does help to clarify my understanding of the terms but my problem is in the execution!

    What I mean is…

    1. If someone tells me “add a CNAME to your DNS to make this.url.com point to that.com”, I don’t know what the actual CNAME record should look like.

    2. Likewise, with using A records, I’m not sure which line items in the existing DNS need to be edited.

    Items 1 and 2 above are assuming that I’m making these changes in the DNS editor provided by my host. But I just watched a Youtube video where some guy was creating a CNAME record at his registrar.

    Like you said, there are different ways of doing things, but I think what I want to do is pretty common… create a network of mapped domains with each domain name being SEO’d like it’s a standalone site. And my being on a shared server probably complicates things, doesn’t it?

    Any further help you can offer would be greatly appreciated!!

    Thanks

    Thread Starter mmccauley

    (@mmccauley)

    I got this resolved through my host, thanks everyone for the help!

Viewing 6 replies - 1 through 6 (of 6 total)
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