Re: [FreeDNS] newbie question - hosting

[Johann Visagie <wjv@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Samuel Murray on 2001-04-19 (Thu) at 17:29:27 +0200:
> 
> I'm puzzled... how do you link the host to granitecanyon?  Or
> perhaps I should ask the other way round:  how do I get granitecanyon to
> forward a website request to the host?  Suppose I'd like to use a freehost,
> and lets take the blad example Geocities... how do I get the url to forward
> to that address once I'm done with granitecanyon?  I don't mind surfers
> seeing the ugly long freehost address in their address bar.

Unfortunately, what you're trying to achieve is not necessarily possible.

Let's say that you have your domains registered correctly, i.e. the
nameservers at (say) GraniteCanyon are authoritative for your domain, and
(say) ZA NiC has successfully processed your registration.

What does this mean?  It means that the ZA NiC nameservers will refer any
request relating to yourdomain.za.net to the authoritative nameservers for
your domain at GraniteCanyon.  The GC nameservers, in turn, will resolve
www.yourdomain.za.net to an IP address.

NB: Getting from the fully qualified host name to an IP address is *all* that
    DNS is going to do for you.  Hereafter, you're not operating in the field
    of domain registrars and nameservice providers anuymore.

This bears repeating:  GraniteCanyon's nameservers - or any nameservers for
that matter - cannot magically "link" a host name to a URL.  They can just
map it to an IP address via an "A" record.

Your problem is going to be obaining the IP address (mentioned above), and
having it associated with your site.  You will have to ask your free hosting
provider whether they will either create a virtual server or a name-based
virtual server for you, and in either case they will have to give you the IP
number to associate with your host name.

(I would say it's unlikely a free hosting provider will do either, but I've
never tried to use any of their services.)

There are some (slighly hackish) alternatives.  If you can find someone who
operates a web server (but doesn't necessarily want to host your entire
site), you can ask them to:

(a)  Create a name-based virtual host for you (this won't cost them an IP
     number).
(b)  Provide you with the IP number shared by your name-based virtual host.
(c)  Then, on the virtual host, place a tiny HTML file which just redirects
     any queries to your "real" URL on the freehost.  This file would contain
     something like:

   <META HTTP-EQUIV="Refresh" CONTENT="0; URL=http://freehost.com/your/url/";>

-- V
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