website not working without www.

[remyseroos]

Hi,

 

I'm not 100% sure if this is the right place to post, but correct me if i'm wrong.

 

I have a website, that isn't working without the www. in front of it. 

Now I know that i can fix this by setting up my .htaccess file, but the problem is that my hosting ISP doesn't make it possible to use the .htaccess in the free hosting packets (the one I use).

 

So i was wondering if there is any other way to fix this.

[Guest]

As far as I know, that's not possible without .htaccess however I'll go have a look at something and have a definite response in a sec. 

[Guest]

Unfortunately you need htaccess :(

[Flynn]

Who do you have your dns set up through?  www is a subdomain, you must point the www subdomain in your dns settings to the ip address your tld is point at.  To illustrate:

 

www = subdomain

irock = domain

.com = TLD

 

irock.com = a domain space

www.irock.com = a completely separate domain space

 

Each domain space must be given an IP.  So go check your DNS settings and have it set correctly to fix the problem.

[Flynn]

I went and pulled this off my DNS registry to show you how I have my sandbox server website set up:

 

          A     --IP--

        TXT   google-site-verification=TEXT  

test    A     --IP--

tools  A     --IP--

www   A     --IP--

 

As you can see, I have my DNS pointing every subdomain to my server's IP.  Then depending on your server configuration (I own my own servers, so I just set it up in apache) you can use an .htaccess to change what folders subdomains go to.  Or if you want your www to go to the regular, you can use either php or an http redirect into whichever sub you want.  If you have any questions let me know and I'll walk you through how to set it all up.

[laxer]

As far as I know, that's not possible without .htaccess however I'll go have a look at something and have a definite response in a sec. 

 

Only if he is running IIS and doesn't have access to root.

 

As Flynn is saying above, if you have access to things like A or CNAME records you can do it.

 

You could also do it via shell through either telnet or SSH if your host allows it.

 

Sadly, without knowing your host or the control panel they provide I can't point you in a direction...

[remyseroos]

Thanks,

I just made a new DNS record (A), with the extension www. in front of it. 

 

 

It takes some time before I can test if it's working, so i keep updated.

 

btw: my domain name provider is www.hostnet.nl & hosting provider PCextreme.nl (both Dutch)   

[P1X3]

So I assume you are using DNS records instead of setting name servers? 

If that is correct than I believe you can create *.domain.com A record and it will take care of all sub domains.

[remyseroos]

I tried to make a  DNS record (A) with www, but after that I'm unable to reach the website at all. So I deleted it. 

Mabey it will help. Here is an overview of my DNS record. 

 

Recordname      | Type        |  value 

------------------    |---------     |-------------

adriaanse.it        |    A          |  (IP)

*.adriaanse.it      |    A          |  (IP)

www.adriaanse.it | Cname  | adriaanse.it

 

In about a month or 2 I'm switching to paid hosting so then I can use .htaccess file. But a temporary solution would be nice.  

[rashdanml]

Needs to be a CNAME (Alias) iirc. At least, that's what my current domain is set up as. Under record name, simply "www" should work. Remove the one with the wildcard.

 

You could probably leave it as Type A, but change the "*.domain.lt" to "www". Also, the first recordname may need to be "@".

 

All of this is based on my namecheap DNS records settings, so I'm not sure how much of it is applicable.

[remyseroos]

I can't type in anything in the "Recordname" field without .adriaanse.it because that is "hardtyped" (don't know to right word for it). 

[lutzee]

Who is your domain registra, normally the @ symbol is just there to point to what ever the default A name is

[remyseroos]

my registrar is Hostnet.nl (but it's Dutch, so may not be easy to figure out for you)

 

here is a screenshot from the screen when you want to chance/add/remove a record. There doesn't change anything if you select an other type (expect from MX & SRV)