Understanding "Add a domain"

February 17, 2016 16.3k views
DNS
Casulleres
By:
Casulleres

Sorry for so stupid question, I come from developing world and I'm newbie in Systems.

I have a Ruby on Rails app running, and I bought a domain name (in www.dondominio.com), and now I want to add my domain to this app (since now accesible only by droplet ip's)

I have added a domain, but I don't understand anything. I expected to receive 5 Ips or 5 name servers, that I had to store in in www.dondominio.com, but there are to many options for my ignorant mind.

Please can someone make an explanation of:

  • What does "Select Record Type" means
  • What name ant what IP do I have to populate?
  • Do I have to push "Create A record" or "Create "AAA" record"

Thanks a lot

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2 Answers
Casulleres February 18, 2016

Thanks a lot, now I understand everything

Today I have been doing the redirecton of www.cave-canem.cat to cave-canem.cat following this instruccions:

https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to-redirect-www-to-non-www-with-nginx-on-ubuntu-14-04

And I don't understand how I achieve it working without the nginx configuration:

server {
    server_name www.example.com;
    return 301 $scheme://example.com$request_uri;
}

I did the nginx configuration as this tutolrial. and didn't worked, in browsers could read "To many redirections", after some tries, I delete the redirecting block of nginx configuracion and it worked !!

Why? Can be because my registrar (maybe, I 'm not sure) already did a redirection?

How To Redirect www to Non-www with Nginx on Ubuntu 14.04
by Mitchell Anicas
This tutorial will show you how to redirect a www URL to non-www, e.g. www.example.com to example.com, with Nginx on Ubuntu 14.04. We will also show you how to redirect in the other direction, from a non-www URL to www.
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  • jschwenn MOD February 18, 2016

    Hey there,

    It's hard to say as both of those records point to the same IP and they both receive a 200 OK response right now when I test them.

    If you are doing any redirection at the registrar instead of a standard A or CNAME record, that could certainly cause a loop!

    Happy coding,

    Jon Schwenn
    Platform Support Specialist
    DigitalOcean

jschwenn MOD February 18, 2016

Hey there,

This tutorial outlines pointing a domain to a Droplet.

When you add a domain to your control panel, it creates a "DNS Zone". The DNS Zone includes all the information to translate names to numbers (IP Addresses) for your domain name.

Note:When adding you domain, make sure to add it as dondominio.com and not www.dondominio.com.

To make this particular DNS Zone active, you would point your domain to these name servers with the company you purchased your domain from:

ns1.digitalocean.com
ns2.digitalocean.com
ns3.digitalocean.com
The important records in the DNS zone are:

A Record: Points a name like @ or www to an IP address. This is what is needed for my domain.com or www.mydomain.com to work. You can also use this for subdomains like blog.mydomain.com or mail.mydomain.com.

Note: AAAA records (also known as quad-A records), are the same as A records but are for IPv6 addresses. You would add AAAA records in addition to A records if you wanted your website/service to be reachable via IPv6. IPv6 is gaining popularity, but not necessary at this time to use.

MX Records: Directs mail sent to @mydomain.com to designated mail servers. You can assign various mail servers priority (lower number = higher priority). These records have to be names like mail.mydomain.com or ASPMX.L.GOOGLE.COM if you are using Google Apps for example.

CNAME Records: Same as the A records, but connects a name to another name. If you were connecting many subdomains to a single server, it would be easier to point records like www or mail to mydomain.com. If you move your site to a new server, you would then only have to update the main A record.

You can get away with just making an A record for your domain pointing @ to the IP Address of your Droplet. Hopefully the information above helps!

Happy coding,

Jon Schwenn
Platform Support Specialist
DigitalOcean

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