DNS issue

[Fred Martin_1]

We had always hosted our own website locally. So, public DNS pointed www at our own public IP address, and NAT at the firewall directed port 80 to the appropriate machine.

In DNS, www was a CNAME for our own domain (www.applicatorssales.com):

@ IN A 64.222.205.178
www IN CNAME @

Then we moved our website to a remote host. Changed DNS:

@ IN A 64.222.205.178
www IN A 64.13.251.83

Here's the issue. When a user goes to the website, the IP address of the remote host appears in the address bar, such as:

http://64.13.251.83/contact_us.html

The remote host company would like to host my DNS zone files as a service, which would solve this DNS quandry but cause other issues (I still host a different website locally, as well as other services/ports). I chose to keep the zone files with my local network's ISP, and just point 'www' at the remote host.

The remote host provides me with a tool to modify DNS records on their network. DNS on their network essentially has what might be conflicting information. That is, on the network of the web host, DNS shows the domain as being their own network, 64.13.251.83. However, that isn't public, since public DNS authority for my domain is with my ISP.

I have a strong suspicion that the reason why the IP address shows up in the address bar is because the particular user that's browsing the web site can't resolve 64.13.251.83.

How would I get both 64.13.251.83 and 64.222.205.178 to resolve to my domain? Or, if that's not possible, by what method should I resolve this?

[Steven E. Protter]

Shalom,

The httpd.conf file may be the culprit.

ServerName investmenttool.com:80

See that that entry has not been changed to the IP address of the system.

Also, if its a named virtual host, the httpd.conf code may be wrong.

See that the remote ip address resolves to the name of the website.

nslookup 64.13.251.83

Must return www.applicatorssales.com

As an answer.

To provide more complete help, I'd need to see the zone zone record that resolve that IP address.

SEP

[Fred Martin_1]

A reverse lookup of 64.13.251.83 using a web-based tool shows this:

83.251.13.64.in-addr.arpa PTR applicatorssales.com.

So you're saying that since I am only pointing www host at the remote host rather than my whole domain, they should set the PTR to point only at the www host?

Fred

[Steven E. Protter]

Shalom,

No, not exactly.

Both 64.13.251.83 and 64.222.205.178 need A records or at least aliases that resolve to www.applicatorssales.com and applicatorssales.com

The Reverse lookup record is nice but will not resolve the problem.

The IP address can be referred to by multiple A records, no problem with that.

SEP

[Steven E. Protter]

Shalom,

Another unrelated issue is you should consider putting size limits on those form fields (I navigated to the contact form).

It is possible for spammers to put malicious content into unlimited size fields and fool your form into sending mail to recipients other than the intended recipient.

Though good code behind the form can prevent it, it is important to have field size limits and good code preventing abuse of the form.

Just a bonus, unsolicited.

Good Luck with the overall issue. Upon further reflection DNS is the number one suspect here, httpd.conf being a secondary issue.

SEP