The website I built my girlfriend is not resolving on her Mac when she types www in before the domain name. Is it her browser or do I need to set up a www redirect somewhere?
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Does it work on your machine? If yes, what browser is she using? This has nothing to do with the mac.– rpfloJun 25, 2009 at 4:32
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5I know this is a nitpick, but example.com/net/org were reserved especially for examples, use them! :P– R. PateJun 25, 2009 at 4:34
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where you registered the domain? (in order to give you suggestion on how to configure the DNS as easy as possible)– Magnetic_dudJun 25, 2009 at 7:11
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I registered at Namecheap.com and host through servage.com. The only dns setup I can do at namecheap is to point is at servage name servers.– BryanJun 25, 2009 at 18:04
4 Answers
I usually set the DNS records like this:
@ IN A 123.123.123.123
www IN A 123.123.123.123
You could, of course, use a CNAME for the www but I prefer to use A records if not necessary. Also you may (or may not) prefer to use an Alias instead of a redirect.
You set it up in Apache like this:
<VirtualHost 123.123.123.123>
ServerName example.com
ServerAlias www.example.com
...
</VirtualHost>
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4
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Quite right! Additionally, I always add that ServerName/ServerAlias, respectively with and without the www. precisely for this reason. Many sites nowadays (look at your location bar right now) are opting to drop the www.– msanfordJul 15, 2009 at 0:01
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On your DNS management area for your domain you need to add a CNAME record, this basically means the www record will point towards the IP for yourdomain.com:
yourdomain.com 300 IN A 123.123.123.123
www.yourdomain.com 300 IN CNAME yourdomain.com
Most DNS control panels should give you this ability.
If you only have an A record for example.com, people who query www.example.com will not get a valid response that points them to your server. Same goes for the other way around.
I have seen people set their example.com as an A record and then have a CNAME for www.example.com pointing to example.com. But as using CNAMEs is not encouraged (so I hear, I am not a DNS guy), having two A records for both example.com and www.example.com pointing to the same IP is fine too, I guess.
In short, yes, you need to setup a DNS record for www.example.com as well as for example.com. A redirect will not work, since it is not possible to successfully resolve both hostnames in DNS.
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2This is because of the Google 'juice' is then split. You want to pick one or the other but not both. The one that is not picked should issue a 302 redirect to the correct name. Jun 25, 2009 at 8:01
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1
Just add an '@' A record and point it to your server's IP address.
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1Adding A record does'nt solve, They are already getting domain.com which is A record , They are asking why www.domain.com is not resolving. For that they have to add an CNAME record that may solve the problem. as Swanny says. Jun 25, 2009 at 10:04