Setting up multiple domain aliases

January 10, 2014 10.5k views
sfl.tekniikka
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sfl.tekniikka
I have five domain names, pointing to the same droplet . One domain is the primary one and the other four are just legacy aliases. There is also bunch of subdomains. How do I set up the DNS system that any subdomain and legacy domain redirect correctly to the subdomain at the primary domain?
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6 Answers
joshuataylorx January 10, 2014
that's not DNS, it's apache/nginx.
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sfl.tekniikka January 10, 2014
Yes, partially it is. Yet, if the domain names and subdomains are not configured correctly, the request will never get to the web server. Thus, original question stands.
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sfl.tekniikka January 10, 2014
To clarify further, I'd like a solution that doesn't require me to duplicate all the subdomain data for all the domains by hand. Keeping say 10 subdomains over 5 domains is 50 steps and prone to errors in the long run.
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pablo January 10, 2014
Not sure how you could automate the process. The only way I can think of is outlined, here: How To Set Up a Host Name with DigitalOcean.
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sfl.tekniikka January 15, 2014
It seems there is no better way than putting wildcard domain redirection "* -> maindomain.com" in the DNS and then handling the requests by redirecting non-maindomain requests in nginx/apache conf.

Putting a wildcard in the DNS causes the non-canonical domain names being used, thus you require a server-side redirect to canonical domain to make it "pretty". This is not an optimal solution, but maybe one day DigitalOcean will provided us a DNAME DNS redirection.
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etel January 15, 2014
You may find this article helpful as well:

https://www.digitalocean.com/community/articles/how-to-set-up-and-test-dns-subdomains-with-digitalocean-s-dns-panel
How To Set Up and Test DNS Subdomains with DigitalOcean's DNS Panel
by Assaf Gordon
Here's some documentation on how to set up and test DNS subdomains with DigitalOcean's DNS panel.
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