Internal Domain name & Website Name Issues

[JPBruwer]

Hi all,

 

I have been struggling for a while and can't get this to work. We have an internal domain with the same name as our website. Eg: Name.com , website: www.name.com.

Domain controller is running Windows Server 2008 R2 and is also handling internal DNS requests.

 

You cannot access the website from within the network, without it pointing to the Domain controller. In the past I created a WWW "A" record in DNS to link to the website's direct IP.

We have recently switched to WIX and since they have server farms you cannot access the site by only entering the IP address. (so WWW record does not work)

P.S We are not running IIS.

 

Would anyone know how I can get it to access www.name.com when you enter the URL in the Address bar in the browser?

 

Thanks!!!!!!!

 

[davidna2002]

maybe add the port number to the URL www.name.com:80

 

 

[JPBruwer]

2 minutes ago, davidna2002 said:

maybe add the port number to the URL www.name.com:80

 

 

Hmmm, I haven't tried that... Will give it a go!

[JPBruwer]

7 minutes ago, JPBruwer said:

Hmmm, I haven't tried that... Will give it a go!

Does not work...

Just tried it..

[brwainer]

For future reference, this is why typically the internal DNS domain is something like ad.company.com, or internal.company.com - so that you don't have to worry about domain usage overlapping. Since you can't easily change your internal names though, you'll have to get creative about solving this.

 

One way to solve it if Wix has an alternate name that also resolves to your website - a lot of website hosts have something like "(customerid).(webhost).com" that is the actual name of your website, and the "www.whatever.com" just happens to point to the same thing. If that is the case, like "(lots of numbers).wix.com" then in your internal DNS server, you would make a CNAME record for www.company.com that points to this alternate name.

[Mikensan]

One semi risky method is under your DNS settings, edit the zone and under name servers add the DNS server responsible for resolving your external site. In theory when your DC can't resolve the IP it should reach out to their DNS server.

It's risky because you want full control over what gets resolved.

 

Or you can create a delegated zone, I've never used this feature but it seems like it should do what you want. Right click your domain.com zone in your DNS snapin, and > New Delegation. 

 

[JPBruwer]

2 hours ago, Mikensan said:

One semi risky method is under your DNS settings, edit the zone and under name servers add the DNS server responsible for resolving your external site. In theory when your DC can't resolve the IP it should reach out to their DNS server.

It's risky because you want full control over what gets resolved.

 

Or you can create a delegated zone, I've never used this feature but it seems like it should do what you want. Right click your domain.com zone in your DNS snapin, and > New Delegation. 

 

I tried the delegation, to point to the SOA and their relevant ip. Still did not change anything. Did a restart of dns, cleared the cache as well.

[JPBruwer]

2 hours ago, brwainer said:

For future reference, this is why typically the internal DNS domain is something like ad.company.com, or internal.company.com - so that you don't have to worry about domain usage overlapping. Since you can't easily change your internal names though, you'll have to get creative about solving this.

 

One way to solve it if Wix has an alternate name that also resolves to your website - a lot of website hosts have something like "(customerid).(webhost).com" that is the actual name of your website, and the "www.whatever.com" just happens to point to the same thing. If that is the case, like "(lots of numbers).wix.com" then in your internal DNS server, you would make a CNAME record for www.company.com that points to this alternate name.

Yeah, I inherited the domain setup like that  How would I go about this? Should I check for this under the WIX settings? Would this be what I see when I log into the site by any chance?

[brwainer]

1 hour ago, JPBruwer said:

Yeah, I inherited the domain setup like that  How would I go about this? Should I check for this under the WIX settings? Would this be what I see when I log into the site by any chance?

Do you pay for the domain name through Wix, or through another company? If it is through another company, is it pointed at Wix by setting the DNS servers to Wix's, or via pointing the domain through a record?

 

EDIT: free Wix websites are in the format of "username.wixsite.com/sitename" - so I would imagine that even paid sites still have this address available for use in a CNAME record. You may have to contact their support to confirm.