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creating CNAME record

My site looks to functioning well on test platform. In order to make the full transition to your hosting, I believe I will need to create CNAME records to send IDX data to my dynamic pages. My current Hostgator has many records but I believe this feeds IDX: verobeachrealestate.verocoastalhomes.com. 14400 IN CNAME subdomains.idxbroker.com. I have attempted to add myself but get errors. Thanks.

Wed, 27 Nov 2019 15:20:34
  • Adam
    • Support Gorilla

    Hi Allan

    I hope you’re well today and thank you for your question!

    I assume that by IDX you’re referring to the “Internet Data Exchange” standard related to Real Estate data sindication, right?

    I admit I’m not familiar with that but if it’s about setting up CNAME then what this

    verobeachrealestate.verocoastalhomes.com. 14400 IN CNAME subdomains.idxbroker.com

    attempts to do is to actually point the “verobeachrealestate.verocoastalhomes.com” to the “subdomains.idxbroker.com” domain. Basically, it means that if added and propagated successfully, typing the “verobeachrealestate.verocoastalhomes.com” address in browser bar would result in loading the site that is originally under the “subdomains.idxbroker.com” URL.

    The ‘subdomains.idxbroker.com” itself is a CNAME record and it also doesn’t seem to exist as a site, I also suppose you don’t really want to redirect your own sub-domain to external site but rather achieve something close but in an opposite direction.

    As I mentioned though, I’m not much familiar with IDX so are there any docs you could point me to related to that specific solution that you’re implementing? I’d like to take a look (but I’m not exactly sure what/where to look for) and I believe that could give me some idea on how this could be configured for you site so I could then advice on the specific DNS setting.

    Best regards,
    Adam

    • Allan
      • WPMU DEV Initiate

      Hi Adam,
      I believe it would be the same as I currently have set-up in Hostgator (attached).
      My concern is avoiding downtime when I start pointing IDX to my site hosted on your servers instead of Hostgator. I also don’t seem to be able to edit records, as I know how to do in C-panel

  • Adam
    • Support Gorilla

    Hi Allan

    Thanks for response!

    I’m afraid that doesn’t make it much more clear to me as it’s just a current DNS setup at Hostgator and I still am not sure how it is supposed to work but:

    1) changing DNS wouldn’t cause any downtime as long as the “source” is still available at both locations; what I mean by this is that e.g (note: IPs below are made-up).

    – you got site at 123.234.345, 456 IP and your domain.com A record points to it
    – you migrate (or rather “clone”, leaving source site intact) to 567.678.789.890 IP
    – both sites are “alive”
    – you change A record of domain.com to that new IP
    – as long as you don’t make changes to any of the sites (source and new one) all should work flawlessly; it’s only just better to hold on with any changes on source (old) site until DNS is fully propagated.

    Now, with that CNAME record that you shared – if this is a correct record and the “subdomains.idxbrokers.com” is not the site that you moved anywhere – there shouldn’t even be any need to change it. Whatever it points to currently, it will still do this, the same way.

    Note please: it’s not “subdomains.idxbrokers.com” directing to the “verobeachrealestate.verocoastalhomes.com” – it’s the opposite direction.

    Additionally – if you have migrated your site to us, you still need to keep your DNS “somewhere” (may it be Hostgator as your previous host or just directly at the domain registrar) as we don’t provide DNS editing/maintenance.

    But if you’re “moving out” your DNS configuration to other place from Hostgator, you actually could just replicate the same records at the now place (e.g. your domain registrar) and that should work fine out of the box – you just might need to wait a bit for a full DNS propagation (and that can take anytime from up to 24-48 hours).

    Kind regards,
    Adam

  • Allan
    • WPMU DEV Initiate

    Hi Adam,
    I was assuming that I would have to edit DNS at the host level as I have done in the past, not knowing that wpmudev did not provide DNS editing capabilities. Editing at domain registrar should accomplish the same thing. Thanks.

    • Adam
      • Support Gorilla

      Hi Allan

      Yes, domain registrar would be a good choice then, I think. On our end there’s no DNS hosting so it’s no possible to manage it – you can’t e.g. transfer domain to us to host it with us. We are providing managed WordPress hosting and focusing on that (so that’s also why there’s no e-mail hosting, which is very different thing than website hosting).

      It is possible that some sort of DNS management might come up in the future but it’s not exactly “set in stone” yet and I don’t have any details to share. Our main goal for now is to do the hosting best way possible, focusing on constant improvements :slight_smile:

      Best regards,
      Adam