Securing a domain name

[Prof.Wizard]

I need your help.
Can anyone suggest me sites that sell/register .com domains and space on servers for my site?

I want to create a personal site using MS's FrontPage 2002 as web authoring tool.

I want them to give:
-a .com domain
-a reasonable amount of space (30-50MB is enough? Dunno.)
-server which supports MS's FrontPage Server Extensions 2002

Can anyone give me URLs of trusty and good-priced registrars? I have found the general directory at www.interNIC.com but don't know which one to choose... :-?

 

[Clocker]

www.50megs.com

Different levels of service from free to pay...

I have used it to create a site real quick for a class I took last year...

http://kevinharper.50megs.com

Clocker

 

[Mercutio]

I just registered mercutio.us (I could've taken mercutio.sr, too, BTW) on dotster.com. Mostly because I already have an account there.
$28 for two years' registration is a pretty good deal to me.

I'm just getting ready to go talk to Handruin about the rest.

 

[Prof.Wizard]

Could you explain me how is it done?
OK, I register the name. What about the space? They give space, right? How much? Will they also say if they support the extensions I'm asking for?!

 

[Mercutio]

You pay a registrar for a name. You pay a hosting provider for space and access to services. Usually the less-expensive registrars are teamed with an expensive hosting service.
Registrars offer things like domain parking and email forwarding, but frankly you can do those things for free through zoneedit, anyway.

 

[Prof.Wizard]

Dotster is over-the-top, Mercutio. Kudos m8!

It was exactly that. You register the name and then (if you want) you can couple it with web hosting services. Their "bronze" class packet (some $45 a quarter) includes MS's FrontPage Server Extensions 2002...

If dad gives the OK, I'm going for it... :wink:
(Jeez, I sound like a spoiled brat, don't I?)

 

[Prof.Wizard]

BTW, what's the US NEXUS requirement to register a .us domain?

(I'm sick of these American crap... In a few years time they will make us issue a VISA to visit their sites...)

 

[Mercutio]

Basically there's some code that needs to be run to determine that you're either a US-ian or have a valid business interest in the US before they'll let you have a site in that namespace. It's not a big deal.
Like, without dealing with an Italian registrar, I don't think I can get a .IT domain.

 

[timwhit]

All I use my registrar for is to register the domain name and I give them the name server details that my hosting service uses. Or you can use zoneedit for free and use their dns server---and point zoneedit to whatever site you want to.

 

[Prof.Wizard]

OK, I've registered MIHAILIDIS.COM
now what?

Those name servers... will I get them by my web hosting company? As Tim said?

(newbie question: will it be www.mihailidis.com or mihailidis.com? :-? )

And what should its status be? I get a "This page cannot be displayed" error. I presume this is normal since I haven't given them any name servers yet, right?

 

[Handruin]

If you registered with dotster, there is a section in the configuration where you can park your domain name. Basically the next step is to point the domain name to the name server of the hosting company you choose. If you are going to wait for a little while, you can point your domain name to dotsters name server. This will give you a web page that says your site has been parked.

When you choose a hosting company, you will need to ask them what their name servers are, and then go back into dotster and update your account. Within 48 hours you domain name should propagate it's DNS and you should be live on your new hosting companies server.

In the mean time you can usually access your host by entering the IP address they give you.

 

[Prof.Wizard]

If you registered with dotster, there is a section in the configuration where you can park your domain name. Basically the next step is to point the domain name to the name server of the hosting company you choose. If you are going to wait for a little while, you can point your domain name to dotsters name server. This will give you a web page that says your site has been parked.

Dotster said that by default the name servers (if you don't enter any) are parked and there should be a "coming soon" page.

I can't see that page yet.
And my name is not appearing in InterNIC's whois service yet.

Should I worry or it gets some time to update this info around the globe?

 

[Bartender]

Prof, give it about 48 hours.

 

[NRG = mc²]

YEp it takes a couple of days for the DNS propagation but in my experience it usually takes less than a day. YMMV.

 

[Prof.Wizard]

Ok. It's up.

 

[Jake the Dog]

i bought some domains, www.agentorange.org, www.gmh-torana.com and a few other through Redirection.net. for US$13.50 p/a. i have them redirected to my own webspaces (well my ISP's actually). cheaps and simple and with unlimted subdomain and e-mail redirects.

 

[Cliptin]

I am having the same trouble as PW. My biggest problem is that I don't understand the nomenclature. I have a name picked out that is unused but that is as far along as I am.

I have investigated www.zoneedit.com, www.dotster.com, www.redirection.net and www.dyndns.org.

I know the first question is going to be what is my criteria. Eventually, I will be hosting a website on some server other that the one provided by my ISP. It could be my a server on my home lan or a hosting service. I would also eventually like to be able to set up email addresses under the domain name I register and have the mail routed to my local network or allow me to IMAP to it, decided at my discretion.

In the mean time, I want to register a domain name and have it point to the long address that is my current web address. It would also be nice if I could use the address I register as a ddns address. I'd like some flexibility with subdomains. I sort of know what they are but I don't understand the implications of using them yet. I would also like to know what CNAME and MX records are and if I need to consider them.

1. zoneedit: As the least expensive service, I would expect it to have the fewest number of services. It seems to provide all of the services I want but I don't understand the pricing structure. Especially the 200MB/1 million DNS query limit.
   
2. redirection: The plus side is that they will register a domain name for $13.50 and include their services for $5 more. A downside is that they say they can not redirect to FTP servers. I don't understand why not. Of this list, only dotser and redirection will register domains.
   
3. dyndns: dyndns is appealing at least because the CustomMyDNS service is a one time fee of $30. They seem to offer everything but the kitchen sink as well. Another good thing about dyndns is that they already handle my ddns service. They recommend dotster for domain registration.
   
4. dotster: dotster seems to offer lots of services but at exhorbitant prices compared to most of the others. Of this list, only dotser and redirection will register domains.
   
5. granitecanyon: Knowledgable people might also want to check out Granite Canyon. I have no commentary as my brain is fried.

I know this is a lot of information to sift through. I do not mind doing the research if I was told what to look for. Thanks in advance.

-Howell

 

[James]

Zoneedit does everything you want and is, to all intents and purposes, free.

Basically if you get more than a million DNS requests for your name in a year, they start to charge you. Bear in mind that's 2,739 requests a day, so if your website is getting more than 2,700 unique visitors a day then you may be up for some DNS charges.

 

[James]

Sorry, more detail.

A CNAME record allows you to point a FQDN (ie. whatever.yourdomain.com) at a specific IP address. An MX record tells mail servers where to deliver the mail for a particular domain.

Zoneedit allows you to forward name@yourdomain.com to somewhere else. Zoneedit also allows you to forward www.yourdomain.com to www.yourisp.com/~yourname or wherever. There is also a client to run on your machine that updates your dynamic IP address on Zoneedit so that mymachine.yourdomain.com always points at you.

Zoneedit do not run mail servers themselves. If you want IMAP mailboxes you can look at my previous advice in this thread.

 

[Jake the Dog]

sort of on-topic ... is there a way i can run mail server at home, that talks to other mail servers and it not run on on default ports? i'm thinking perhaps mail redirecting might need to be involved.

 

[Jake the Dog]

sort of on-topic ... is there a way i can run mail server at home, that talks to other mail servers and it not run on on default ports? i'm thinking perhaps mail redirecting might need to be involved.

pardon me, i forgot to add, can this be done 'for free'?

 

[James]

If you run a mail server from home, most mail servers will reject your mail because it comes from an IP block allocated on a dynamic basis. In general, not a good idea.

Outgoing mail has to go via port 25. Incoming mail has to arrive via port 25. You don't have much choice on those.

 

[Sol]

You could redirect ports with a router machine, but I don't think thats quite what your after.

 

[Tannin]

Well, your parking site is up Prof.

So is the attached X-cam ad.

Oh well, it's only temporary.

 

[Pradeep]

Well, your parking site is up Prof.

So is the attached X-cam ad.

Oh well, it's only temporary.

Jebus that's the most advertising I've ever seen on a parked site. Quickly Prof get an index page up there, even if it is blank!

 

[Prof.Wizard]

Yo people: Anyone for EuroGyros?

Question: What's the difference between Addon, Parked, and Sub-Domains?

 

[Handruin]

Yo people: Anyone for EuroGyros?

Question: What's the difference between Addon, Parked, and Sub-Domains?

Addon might be the result of having more then one domain name point to the same site. IE. www.sourceforge.com and www.sourceforge.net displaying the same page. But I'm not sure if that is what addon refers to. Try both urls, you will see. When you type in www.sourceforge.com, it will change the name of the page to sourceforge.net.

A parked domain is when you purchase a domain name and point it to a set of name servers that will display a page like www.stevesnascar.com. It's more or less a "coming soon" so that you do not see a blank index of your site.

A sub domain is something like beta.storageforum.net. It's a way to organize additions to your web site so that you don't have a very long url for everything.

Such as www.storageforum.net/beta is the same as beta.storageforum.net. That wasn't a great example, but a site such www.sourceforge.com takes advantage of sub domains like there is no tomorrow. Each sub domain I believe is a separate project.

 

[Prof.Wizard]

Silly question by a webonaut after so much time around, but what's the "www" all about?

Most domains I know, including mine, open either you type www.mihailidis.com or plain mihailidis.com.

Handruin: I checked all your examples and I thank you. However I noticed a slight difference between www.sourceforge.net/beta and beta.sourceforge.net. Yes, the same Apache interface opens, but watch the different directory name.

 

[Pradeep]

In hosting terms, a parked domain is usually one that "shares" the same IP as another domain you have (a "virtual domain"). A virtual domain has it's own IP address. If you have several domain names that you just want to point to a .com for example, you can have the others parked on your virtual domain, usually at no cost per month (whereas I pay $1 per month for each virtual at pair.com).

 

[Mercutio]

Prof, in the olden days, most sites on the internet consisted of more than one computer, each with a unique name.

So for example, expert.cc.purdue.edu, mentor.cc.purdue.edu and sage.cc.purdue.edu were all computers on Purdue's network.

Because outsiders weren't always aware what each computer did, and insiders didn't always remember, DNS has the ability to alias the same computer to more than one name.

This was most commonly used to associate a function to a named computer.
So (this is an example):
expert.cc.purdue.edu = www.purdue.edu
mentor.cc.purdue.edu = mail.purdue.edu
sage.cc.purdue.edu = news.purdue.edu

By common agreement, pretty much everyone went to using "www" for their web stuff. This was not always the case. Early on, I remember a LOT of w3. or w3c. or web. URLs.

Nowadays, most domains are a single computer, or just a big alias to a directory on a server, and by convention, the "www." and "mail." are just more aliases to the same place.

Does that help explain?

 

[Prof.Wizard]

Does that help explain?

I'm no stupid Merc.

 

[Fushigi]

We use sub-domains a lot. For us, each subdomain typically represents a server. Our company is global in reach, so our domain names are all server.region.ourcompany.com. Region is just 2 characters: am for the Americas (North & South), eu for Europe, and ap for Asia-Pacific (includes China, Japan, Australia, etc.).

Going to www.ourcompany.com (obviously not our real name...) is the overall corporate home page. Besides some basic info it links to the different regions.

- Fushigi

 

[Mercutio]

I'm going to hope that's a typo, PW. Otherwise I'd be forced to flame you into oblivion.

(and for the record, no, I've never done that here or on SR).

 

[Prof.Wizard]

I thought you were ironic, that's all.

 

[Will Rickards WT]

Long ago, I registered willrickards.net with jumpdomain.com.
I use mydomain.com's free services to redirect traffic to my ISPs webspace and to route my mail to my ISPs mail accounts.

 

[blakerwry]

sort of on-topic ... is there a way i can run mail server at home, that talks to other mail servers and it not run on on default ports? i'm thinking perhaps mail redirecting might need to be involved.

I run my own mail server... but then I also host my own www server too.

server runs off my 384kbit/sec cable service(dynamic IP) it's a 66mHz 486 running www(IIS), SMTP(Mdaemon), POP3(Mdaemon), IMAP(mdaemon), and webmail server(World client)

I get something like 3000 http requests per day on the WWW side of things and really only have 2 active email accounts(out of about 5) on the server.

i use dns2go.com as my DNS provider.. they were free up till 1 month ago, the cost is now $10 for a year of service which gives me something like 50 possible domains.

If you're interested in doing subdomains you can easily do them in IIS with a server version of windows. You can even have completely different websites or domains running on the same server, same port, same everything... very nice in my opinion.

ex:
allAboutCats.com
coolAnime.com
ExampleWebsite.com

all point to 1 IP, but each are completely different domains and host completly different websites. I am not sure if the same is available on apache web servers, but i would assume that it is.

 

[Handruin]

sort of on-topic ... is there a way i can run mail server at home, that talks to other mail servers and it not run on on default ports? i'm thinking perhaps mail redirecting might need to be involved.

I run my own mail server... but then I also host my own www server too.

server runs off my 384kbit/sec cable service(dynamic IP) it's a 66mHz 486 running www(IIS), SMTP(Mdaemon), POP3(Mdaemon), IMAP(mdaemon), and webmail server(World client)

I get something like 3000 http requests per day on the WWW side of things and really only have 2 active email accounts(out of about 5) on the server.

i use dns2go.com as my DNS provider.. they were free up till 1 month ago, the cost is now $10 for a year of service which gives me something like 50 possible domains.

If you're interested in doing subdomains you can easily do them in IIS with a server version of windows. You can even have completely different websites or domains running on the same server, same port, same everything... very nice in my opinion.

ex:
allAboutCats.com
coolAnime.com
ExampleWebsite.com

all point to 1 IP, but each are completely different domains and host completly different websites. I am not sure if the same is available on apache web servers, but i would assume that it is.

The same is available on apache servers. My reselling domain account uses this exact model where a (virtually) unlimited number of domain names can use the same IP address. So far I have 4 sites uses the same IP on apache under linux.

 

[time]

One of a series of terrific posts, blakerwry. Welcome aboard!

 

[Jake the Dog]

thanks blakerwry.

unfortunately no-one has been able to tell me how to run a mail server off non-standard ports. my isp doesn't allow servers of any kind and i know they monitor ports 25 & 110 looking for mail activity. just as blakerwry has done, it's not difficult to run your own mail server nor is it difficult change the ports it uses but how can it be made to communicate with other mail servers?