Domain name not working (blank page)

May 20, 2015 6.6k views
DNS DigitalOcean
Demers94
By:
Demers94

Hello everyone,

I'm trying to setup a domain name purchased on GoDaddy with my DigitalOcean droplet. So far, here's what I've done :

  • Added the DigitalOcean nameservers (NS) in the Godaddy panel

  • Setup the domain in DigitalOcean for my droplet

If I ping the domain name charlesdemers.com, here's what I get : 

PING charlesdemers.com (45.55.239.198): 56 data bytes
64 bytes from 45.55.239.198: icmp_seq=0 ttl=54 time=32.050 ms
64 bytes from 45.55.239.198: icmp_seq=1 ttl=54 time=31.006 ms
64 bytes from 45.55.239.198: icmp_seq=2 ttl=54 time=30.818 ms
64 bytes from 45.55.239.198: icmp_seq=3 ttl=54 time=32.044 ms

The IP adress is correct, it's pointing to my droplet's IP. However, if I try to access the website by typing the domain name, it won't work. I only get a blank page.

If I type the IP adress its pointing to directly, it works though.

Any idea on what I'm doing wrong? Am I missing a key step?

Thank you all for your help.

2 comments
  • jesin May 20, 2015

    Bookmark the following website, it'll help you check if the DNS changes were propagated throughout the world:

    https://www.whatsmydns.net

  • Demers94 May 20, 2015

    Thank you very much for the link, I'll definitely bookmark that! I just ran the test and got all green lights, checked my website and now it works. :)

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3 Answers
eldin May 20, 2015

Sure,

You need Apache2

sudo apt-get install apache2

Then 

cd /etc/apache2/sites-enabled
nano 000-default.conf

Check if you see this 

<VirtualHost *:80>
        # The ServerName directive sets the request scheme, hostname and port that
        # the server uses to identify itself. This is used when creating
        # redirection URLs. In the context of virtual hosts, the ServerName
        # specifies what hostname must appear in the request's Host: header to
        # match this virtual host. For the default virtual host (this file) this
        # value is not decisive as it is used as a last resort host regardless.
        # However, you must set it for any further virtual host explicitly.
        #ServerName www.example.com

        ServerAdmin webmaster@localhost
        DocumentRoot /var/www/html

        # Available loglevels: trace8, ..., trace1, debug, info, notice, warn,
        # error, crit, alert, emerg.
        # It is also possible to configure the loglevel for particular
        # modules, e.g.
        #LogLevel info ssl:warn

        ErrorLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/error.log
        CustomLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/access.log combined

        # For most configuration files from conf-available/, which are
        # enabled or disabled at a global level, it is possible to
        # include a line for only one particular virtual host. For example the
        # following line enables the CGI configuration for this host only
        # after it has been globally disabled with "a2disconf".
        #Include conf-available/serve-cgi-bin.conf
</VirtualHost>

# vim: syntax=apache ts=4 sw=4 sts=4 sr noet

Everything should work fine. If you still see a blanc page, wait 24h (DNS need some time)

You save HTML files here : /var/www/html

If you need PHP and MySQL just ask

Reply
  • Demers94 May 20, 2015

    Hello,

    thanks for the fast reply! I forgot to mention that I selected the one-click install of LAMP when I created the droplet, so I already have Apache2, PHP and MySQL.

    I did put the files in the /var/www/html, and I'm sure that they're in the right place since I can see the website when I type the IP adress directly.

    I suppose that the only thing I can do is wait then, I didn't know the the DNS needed that much time.

eldin May 20, 2015

Your domain works, it was DNS, it takes some time

Reply
mf4c86 May 20, 2015

Dns can take anywhere from 30 min - 48 hours, most of the time its pretty quick but for some people it has taken 48 hours, your just at the mercy of how busy the internet is

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