DNS Question

I have a domain that was registered with go-daddy. An email account was set up with Yahoo with go-daddy now pointing to Yahoo's name servers. I would like to keep the Yahoo mail service but host a web site here on DreamHost.

It is important that both the email and web site have the same domain name. Is this possible? I don't like the domain forwarding options.

Thanks,
Mike

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I have a domain that was registered with go-daddy. An email account was set up with Yahoo with go-daddy now pointing to Yahoo's name servers. I would like to keep the Yahoo mail service but host a web site here on DreamHost.

It is important that both the email and web site have the same domain name. Is this possible? I don't like the domain forwarding options.

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You can either:
1. Keep yahoo as your name servers but have an A record for your base domain point to the DreamHost web server you're on.
2. Have DreamHost as your name server and have the MX record point to Yahoo's mail server.

The tradeoffs are that if DreamHost is your name server, then they will automatically update your A record if you have to move servers. This doesn't happen very often. The same goes for Yahoo and its mail servers - though that's probably even less likely because mail servers are declared by name in the MX record.

You can set the MX record for domains in the DreamHost control panel under Mail>Custom MX.

I would personally go with option #2, but there are reasons to go with option #1.

Thanks for the response.

I tried option 1 and ended up getting a "bad httpd config" error. Perhaps I did something funny with the A record. I set the base.domain.name to the IP number listed on my DreamHost Domain Manager. If it matters, the site I'm trying to point to is set up as a sub domain of my main domain at DreamHost.

Just for grins, I also tried changing the CNAME on the Yahoo server so that I could try pointing to the actual sub domain name on DreamHost. I get the same error.

In both cases, I did an nslookup and saw that the mapping looked correct. I'm guessing I'm missing something subtle.

Option 2 sounds good. I'm concerned about downtime on the email, though. Would changing name servers affect that?

Thanks again,
Mike

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I tried option 1 and ended up getting a "bad httpd config" error. Perhaps I did something funny with the A record. I set the base.domain.name to the IP number listed on my DreamHost Domain Manager. If it matters, the site I'm trying to point to is set up as a sub domain of my main domain at DreamHost.

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It does matter. :)

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Just for grins, I also tried changing the CNAME on the Yahoo server so that I could try pointing to the actual sub domain name on DreamHost. I get the same error.

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Hmm.

So you shouldn't need any CNAME records. Let's say you want to host a MediaWiki at wiki.mikel.org on DreamHost and your server IP address according to the DreamHost control panel is 123.123.123.123. You should have the following A records at Yahoo for mikel.org:
wiki A 123.123.123.123
www.wiki A 123.123.123.123

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In both cases, I did an nslookup and saw that the mapping looked correct. I'm guessing I'm missing something subtle.

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Just to make sure we're on the same page for your current DreamHost configuration: using our previous example, you have wiki.mike.org set up as a fully hosted subdomain on DreamHost, right? And looking at the DNS control panel for that subdomain, the IP address listed there is the one being returned by nslookup, right?

It's easy to miss something in the translation. It's hard for me to describe exactly what to do or what you should see over at Yahoo because I'm not familiar with the Yahoo control panel.

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Option 2 sounds good. I'm concerned about downtime on the email, though. Would changing name servers affect that?

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You can set it up so that the DreamHost nameservers are already pointed to your yahoo mail server before you set DreamHost as the nameservers for your domain. That way, both the old and the new nameservers will point to the Yahoo mail servers and mail will always be directed to Yahoo.

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Thanks for the response.

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Anytime!

Bravo. I'm in business. If you're ever in Boise, ID. I owe you a bear or cold beverage of your choice.

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I owe you a bear or cold beverage of your choice.

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Is this a trick question?

One quick follow up and FYI. I had a chat with a tech guy at Yahoo and he informed me that option 2 would not work for them. I didn't get the details, but there is something funky about how they do their email and changing an MX record doesn't work.

Could be a typo.... but then again, I am from Idaho. How 'bout a brewski.

I'm always up for a cold one!