Connecting a Website to a Domain Help

[chicksoup]

Hello,

 

we have a wordpress website hosted on a server and it's currently only accessible by this: http://144.76.194.121/~cookies/   but of course we want to connect it to a domain name we already bought at United Domains.com. We got Nameservers from the host: dns1.werbedesign-hosting.com and dns2.werbedesign-hosting.com and we had the entered in the correct field in the United Domains control panel like explained in the FAQ and we waited for about a week and it just would never connect to our website. So I was wondering what we're doing wrong. We can access the Wordpress control panel under: http://144.76.194.121/~cookies/ so do we have to change something there or do we have to change a setting in the hosting control panel?

 

BTW I helped my Mom with entering the nameservers and everything right now I tried a "A record" to the IP instead. Neither me or she has looked at the host's control panel yet. Could there be settings to change there?

 

 

 

Any help would be greatly appreciated

[Wferr]

under DNS set up a A record to the ip and instead of having it at /cookies/ in wordpress change it to just root / 

[chicksoup]

under DNS set up a A record to the ip and instead of having it at /cookies/ in wordpress change it to just root / 

the A record in the Domain control panel is to: 144.76.194.121

 

and you're saying that I can change /~cookies/ in wordpress to /root/ and then it will work? 

[Wferr]

the A record in the Domain control panel is to: 144.76.194.121

 

and you're saying that I can change /~cookies/ in wordpress to /root/ and then it will work? 

root as in just / on wordpress and not /cookies/

because the a record is just pointing the browser to 144.76.194.121/ and not 144.76.194.121/cookies/

[chicksoup]

root as in just / on wordpress and not /cookies/

because the a record is just pointing the browser to 144.76.194.121/ and not 144.76.194.121/cookies/

I read that requires all the files being moved to the root directory...is that dangerous? could you point me do a good guide? the ones I find are all completely different

[Kiwi00000]

It is not dangerous to have your files located in the root directory.

 

Also, it might take a while for the updates to actually happen as it has to go from your authorative DNS nameserver to the root DNS servers. It might take around a day for it to mitigate across the internet.

[bluescreeny]

I dont know if this is answered all ready, but I guess I'll just tell you what I usually tend to do in this situation.

 

>register a free account on freedns

>set your domain to point towards freedns' nameservers

>edit everything server related from there (adding subdomains, changing location of which the site is pointed, etc)

 

That way I can easily move my server around as much as I want without having to worry about either paying my domain registrator for some stupid subdomain fee, or dns zone limitations.

[chicksoup]

I dont know if this is answered all ready, but I guess I'll just tell you what I usually tend to do in this situation.

 

>register a free account on freedns

>set your domain to point towards freedns' nameservers

>edit everything server related from there (adding subdomains, changing location of which the site is pointed, etc)

 

That way I can easily move my server around as much as I want without having to worry about either paying my domain registrator for some stupid subdomain fee, or dns zone limitations.

I think the problem is more that even if the nameservers are set according to the host the website won't connect

[Sicarius]

It's not dangerous to have files stored in the root directory but it IS dangerous to have the webserver running on Root permissions. If someone manages to find a vuln in your website and gain a remote shell they will have root access and be able to cause some serious damage. Make sure you have set up a new account for the server to run off.

[bluescreeny]

I think the problem is more that even if the nameservers are set according to the host the website won't connect

Are you using apache or nginx?

Make sure you set up your vhost properly. Alternatively point the domain to your root web directory and see if it displays whatever you have there. Windows or Linux?

[rockking1379]

I read that requires all the files being moved to the root directory...is that dangerous? could you point me do a good guide? the ones I find are all completely different

it doesnt require it, its just easier that way. you could write a small php script that returns a http code 301 and then redirects to where you want your site to be, here is an example

<?php        header( "HTTP:/1.1 301 Moved Permanently" );        header( "Location: website/index.php" );?>

your other option is to modify the web server config and set the root directory to be wherever you have the cookie website

[omniomi]

Hello,

 

we have a wordpress website hosted on a server and it's currently only accessible by this: http://144.76.194.121/~cookies/   but of course we want to connect it to a domain name we already bought at United Domains.com. We got Nameservers from the host: dns1.werbedesign-hosting.com and dns2.werbedesign-hosting.com and we had the entered in the correct field in the United Domains control panel like explained in the FAQ and we waited for about a week and it just would never connect to our website. So I was wondering what we're doing wrong. We can access the Wordpress control panel under: http://144.76.194.121/~cookies/ so do we have to change something there or do we have to change a setting in the hosting control panel?

 

BTW I helped my Mom with entering the nameservers and everything right now I tried a "A record" to the IP instead. Neither me or she has looked at the host's control panel yet. [emphasis mine] Could there be settings to change there?

 

 

 

Any help would be greatly appreciated

 

The name servers for a domain tell everyone else on the internet where DNS for that domain is configured. If you change the nameservers to werbedesign-hosting.com's DNS server that means you need to configure DNS using their cPanel. Anything set in DNS on United Domains will be ignored if the name servers are not pointed to them.

 

The usual steps with shared hosting for getting a domain to work are as follows:

 

- Register the domain through a registrar (United Domains in your case.)

- Point the nameservers at the hosting company (Werbedesign in your case.)

- Log in to the hosting company's control panel (cPanel in your case.)

- Add the domain in the control panel so the hosting company is aware it is pointed at their nameservers and sets up a DNS zone for it.

 

The /~cookie is irrelevant. Once it's configured properly it will just be you-domain.com/~cookie. You don't need PHP redirects, you don't need A records, you don't need to care if they use Apache or nginx, and you don't need to move your site to the root of your hosting. You need to use werbedesign's DNS controls and you need to tell them the domain is pointed at their nameservers. That's it.

 

If you want to add the A Record using United Domains you will need to point the nameservers back to them but you'll likely still need to enter the domain in the hosting cPanel so it can create the Apache proxies for you.