SOLVED CNAME not working

[OregonDean]

Greetings ... I'm a pretty experienced DNS user but this one has me stumped. I host my own DNS via WHM (I'm authoritative) and use a secondary DNS service.

I created a CNAME for wwww.MLDfoundation.org (yes, 4 w's) resolving to MLD.foundation

MLD.foundation loads properly but wwww.MLDfoundation.org gives me a "Sorry" error on the MLDfoundation.org domain with no details.

Additional details ... wwww is not configured as a cPanel subdomain at MLDfoundation.org, resolving is all done via DNS.

What am I missing? Thanks!

 

[cPRex]

Hey there! I believe the 4th line is the root cause of your issue:

Additional details ... wwww is not configured as a subdomain at MLDfoundation.org, resolving is all done via DNS.

There needs to be something setup in Apache for that request to be routed properly on the server side. If not, you'll receive the "Sorry" page since Apache doesn't know how to handle that request. If you setup the subdomain on the server I would expect this to start working instantly since the DNS is already in place. Can you try that and see if that works?

 

[OregonDean]

Hi there, @cPRex - thanks.

I don't fully understand your suggestion. It's my understanding that DNS resolves first before Apache is called, isn't that how the call gets to Apache in the first place? Also, these are two separate WHM accounts on the same server so I am not sure how to redirect inside Apache to the other account.

Hey there! I believe the 4th line is the root cause of your issue:
Additional details ... wwww is not configured as a subdomain at MLDfoundation.org, resolving is all done via DNS.

There needs to be something setup in Apache for that request to be routed properly on the server side. If not, you'll receive the "Sorry" page since Apache doesn't know how to handle that request. If you setup the subdomain on the server I would expect this to start working instantly since the DNS is already in place. Can you try that and see if that works?

 

[wintech2003]

I understand you're trying to do a redirect here, but that needs to be done in the webserver level since both domains are hosted on the same server/IP.
You're pointing wwww.MLDfoundation.org to MLD.foundation which in turn resolves to 52.89.98.119 and at this point your webserver is taking over.

The request header contains wwww.MLDfoundation.org not MLD.foundation, as such, since you already have MLDfoundation.org as an account on that server, but no wwww subdomain, you will get the sorry message.
You'd need to create an wwww subdomain, then inside there create an .htaccess file with a redirect to MLD.foundation

 

[cPRex]

Exactly what @wintech2003 said - everything starts with DNS, but once the request reaches the server you'll need something setup in Apache to read and serve content.

 

[OregonDean]

All fixed - thanks. I created a wwww sub-domain in mldfoundation.org and used the cPanel sub-domain redirect to MLD.foundation ... which, as described above, must be an Apache redirect.

 

[cPRex]

@OregonDean - I'm glad that worked well for you!