Forums

Hello. I changed my web app name name to engineeermyworld.com, and gave my hosting company (HostGator) the CNAME PyAny provided. That was 44 hours ago and I'm still not seeing it populate. I get an "Index of/" page instead. I don't know if the problem is on the PyAny side or the HostGator side. A HostGator rep added the CNAME record for me since the cPanel wouldn't let me due to that domain being ("reserved")? They added the Zone alias/name pythonanywhere.engineermyworld.com. not engineermyworld.com., and I see that they did not delete any of the other CNAME records or A names. I don't know if they should have but I would think they'd know whether to or not since I clearly told them what I wanted. Does it sound like the error is on their side or have I set the PyAny side incorrectly? PyAny says, "There is a problem with your domain name configuration...could take as long as a day." I added "www" to the web app name but has no effect. Any recommendations? Should I have them or should I delete the previous A and CNAME records like ftp.(etc).com? Thank you.

Update 1: HostGator says: "However, you want to point the domain engineermyworld.com to PythonAnywhere, so we need a SiteIP so that we can create A record to point to them." The PyAny instructions do not provide a SiteIP and am still struggling with this. HostGator lists 20+ records (CNAME, A, SRV, TXT) and I really don't want to delete them one by one waiting 24 hours in between to see if it works. They want me to add an A name record and I can't find the info on PyAny what the IP would be. Thanks.

Update 2: After some back and forth between me and HostGator (them saying I need a SiteIP and me saying PyAny doesn't provide one that I could find) I told them I wanted to get on the same page and re-explained the situation. I said:

"Ok I want to make sure we're on the same page before we proceed, because reading through the PythonAnywhere forums other people are having the same problem but with GoDaddy. What I would like to do is continue to use HG's name servers, but set up mapping so that engineermyworld.com points to a server with the hostname webapp-XXXXXX.pythonanywhere.com."

I then copied the following text from PyAny staff that I found on this forum page: https://www.pythonanywhere.com/forums/topic/14940/#id_post_77795

"You don't need an IP address or nameservers to point a domain that is registered with them at our servers. (Also, it would be really weird to provide both a nameserver and an IP address to a domain registrar -- you only need one or the other.) What you need to do is: Use GoDaddy's nameservers In their DNS administration pages, create a CNAME record that points www.yourdomain.com at the value we provide on the "Web" page (which will look something like webapp-123456.pythonanywhere.com. A CNAME record is a way to tell the DNS system where a website is without needing to use an IP address." -PythonAnywhere staff

HostGator responded with:

"Okay, I will update it as you say. I have updated the CNAME for you now. Is there anything else I may assist you with, today?"

I don't know why me quoting PythonAnywhere staff all of a sudden seemed to have helped but what has changed on my cPanel is there is a "Name" of www.engineermyworld.com and "Record" of the webapp-(etc). Some CNAME "Names" that were auto-registered at the time of the domain's purchase are still listed: cpanel.engineermyworld.com., webmail.engineermyworld.com., and ftp.engineermyworld.com. which have a "Record" of engineermyworld.com. HostGator says it should populate in 4-8 hours and I hope that's so. Also, because they added the Name www.engineermyworld.com I changed my web app name from engineermyworld.com to www.engineermyworld.com., which is what the PythonAnywhere staff recommended for another user in the forum I liked above anyway. I'll check back if it works (or) after a reasonable amount of time (4-8 hours or more) to update again.

Update 3: 1/2 Victory! So when going to www.engineermyworld.com it correctly populates to PyAny. However when going to engineermyworld.com it does not.

Update 4: Victory! On HostGator's side I set a 301 permanent redirect from engineermyworld.com to www.engineermyworld.com. Then I enabled HTTPS on PyAny, and BOOM! we're good to go.

Lasting questions: 1) Can someone shed light on why HostGator or registrars in general seem to not be willing to map their domains to other servers? 2) Was setting a 301 redirect from engineermyworld.com to www.engineermyworld.com the correct/optimal method to allow visitors to get to www.engineermyworld.com by typing in engineermyworld.com , or should I go about this a different way on either PyAny's side or my registrar's side?

Bless, Sam

1) You have to ask them.

2) It's fine.

We always try to answer all the questions about that topic on our help page https://help.pythonanywhere.com/pages/NakedDomains/ Were you missing anything there?

Have you seen our general DNS information page? https://help.pythonanywhere.com/pages/DNSPrimer