0

I am using Enom.com's DNS Servers to manage several domains' DNS settings. I'm having trouble understanding how to correctly set up the DNS so that all http requests will resolve to a naked domain without resulting in example.com redirected you too many times error.

So, regardless of any of the following:

http://www.example.com
http://foo.example.com
http://*.example.com

The DNS record should always redirect to the naked domain of http://example.com

IIS Server (Windows 2016)

Further, I'd prefer not to set up an IIS URL Rewrite with a Canonical Domain Name rule for every domain. My preference is to have the DNS records simply resolve everything back to the naked domain.

IIS Host Records

My server relies heavily on Host Header Records to correctly resolve the incoming request to the correct website. In other words, several domains' A Records point to the same IP Address on my server.

Current DNS Record Configuration (with Enom)

Host Name       Record Type     Address
www             URL Redirect    example.com
@ (none)        A (Address)     1.2.3.4
* (all others)  URL Redirect    example.com

The URL Redirect record is a special record Enom provides. From the Enom Host Records help page:

URL Redirect is not a native DNS record type. Specifying URL Redirect for a hostname creates an underlying A record that directs the name to our URL Forwarding servers. These servers then perform an HTTP 301 redirect to the URL you specify in the address field. You can specify only the domain name to go to, or a full path to a specific file.

Summary of Question

How can I set up the DNS Records so that all variants of a domain are always sent to the naked domain without having to use an IIS URL Rewrite rule?

Improve this question
4
  • Provide true names and IP addresses. No point in obfuscating them.
    – Patrick Mevzek
    Apr 30, 2017 at 16:24
  • @PatrickMevzek - not sure I follow? This is more of a general question; I've already provided a sample DNS configuration. I'd like to know if anyone has experience, particularly with Enom's URL Redirect DNS setting. And if the current sample config looks correct. What other information can I provide you?
    – Metro Smurf
    Apr 30, 2017 at 17:34
  • Did you try to contact Enom's support? You are paying them for this service, no? Your question is not a DNS question: there is no DNS "redirect" nor URL redirect at the DNS level. This is a mix of DNS + HTTP redirections or whatever, that are provided by a specific service so the company providing it is probably your best course. A pure DNS wildcard in the example.com (sic) zone would indeed point all names below it to the same IP addresses, and there a webserver has to handle all requests.
    – Patrick Mevzek
    Apr 30, 2017 at 17:50
  • Fair enough. I have submitted a support ticket to Enom.
    – Metro Smurf
    Apr 30, 2017 at 18:29

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
1

DNS cant redirect users. You have to configure your webserver (iis in this case) to redirect (301) users that type www.domain.tld to domain.tld. DNS only resolves names... You can setup a "redirect virtual host" that is a catch-all to redirect users to your main site (google "wildcard subdomain"). I've done this with apache (except the other way around, i wanted the www... I'm old fashioned)

Improve this answer
4
  • What about in the context of my question where Enom provides a DNS URL-Redirect?
    – Metro Smurf
    Apr 29, 2017 at 22:37
  • My bad, reading up on it now... I've never used it...
    – Linuxx
    Apr 29, 2017 at 22:40
  • Unless they support wildcards, the only way i could imagine this would work is to use iis. 2016 supports wildcard virtual hosts. Personally i would rather redirect myself... I'm odd like that..
    – Linuxx
    Apr 29, 2017 at 22:43
  • Thanks for the pointer on the wildcard subdomain; I'll likely end up with something similar if this simply isn't supported by Enom's DNS servers.
    – Metro Smurf
    Apr 29, 2017 at 22:53

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .