This HOWTO configures a DNS server to allow URL's of the form http://www.mydomain.com and http://mydomain.com - both URL's will get to the same web server. Seems it’s the cool thing to do these days.
Note: You will also have to change your web server for this to work (change defined below for Apache using Virtual hosts).
; zone fragment for 'zone name' mydomain.com
....
; SOA NS MX and other stuff
; define an IP that will resolve mydomain.com
IN A 192.168.0.3
; you could also write the above line as
; mydomain.com. IN A 192.168.0.3
www IN CNAME mydomain.com. ; dot essential
; aliases www.mydomain.com to mydomain.com
; OR define another A record for www using same host
; this is the least number of changes and saves a CNAME
www IN A 192.168.0.3
You could do the above for any other host name e.g. ftp as long as different ports are in use e.g. ftp://example.com would work if your FTP server was appropriately configured and on the same host!
Apache change
Assuming you are using virtual hosts on an Apache server you will have a definition in your httpd.conf file something like this:
<VirtualHost 10.10.0.23>
ServerAdmin webmaster@mydomain.com
DocumentRoot /path/to/web/root
ServerName www.mydomain.com
ErrorLog logs/error_log
CustomLog logs/access_log common
</VirtualHost>
You need add a second definition with ServerName modified to reflect your change as follows:
<VirtualHost 10.10.0.23>
ServerAdmin webmaster@mydomain.com
DocumentRoot /path/to/web/root
ServerName mydomain.com
ErrorLog logs/error_log
CustomLog logs/access_log common
</VirtualHost>
An alternate method is to use a single <VirtualHost> with the ServerAlias directive as shown below:
<VirtualHost 10.10.0.23>
ServerAdmin webmaster@mydomain.com
DocumentRoot /path/to/web/root
ServerName www.mydomain.com
ServerAlias mydomain.com
ErrorLog logs/error_log
CustomLog logs/access_log common
</VirtualHost>
Notes:
- In many cases when you type example.com in your browser, the ever helpful browser will auto-complete (or guess) that what you really meant was www.example.com and add the www. So after all that hard work in many browsers example.com would have worked even if you had done nothing!
- If you are using MS Frontpage extensions with a single <VirtualHost> definition then the ServerName must be the name that is used to login to FP. In the example above the FrontPage login name used would be www.mydomain.com. When using FP if the ServerName were example.com and the ServerAlias were www.mydomain.com then the FP login would fail.
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