What to do when an A record is missing ???

[ikthius]

Hey everyone,

ok question, I hope someone can answer quickly.

I have a site that my client bought space for, they then got a sub-domain, but bought the Domain name for this elsewhere (don’t know why) but asked to get the name transferred to where the host is…. with me so far?

we (client and I) got the domain names "A" record to point to the new server/directory, and proceeded to transfer the domain name over.

everything was working well until a couple of days ago and now the host who is to get the domain name does not have control and the original supplier of the domain does not have a record.

problem is we need to get this domain name working or something similar so the site can work.

now to try and summarise for help:

UK2.NET = domain supplier
Zen.co.uk = host

main sub domain is riaspfs.com also riaspfs.co.uk was bought (.co.uk re-directs to .com)
sub-domain is a directory in the main account (directory is riaspfs.com)

now for the crucial question…

is there anything I can do to make the site look like either .com or .co.uk to have the site working?

the client needds to present this tomorrow apparently (at an annual dinner) to another company who they are joining forces with.

I really need advice on this one.

[AshtonSanders]

Crap man. that doesn’t make any sense.

Some thoughts. Subdomains (ie websitedesign.websitesinaflash.com) must be connected with a domain (websitesinaflash.com). You can host subdomains separately from domain names, but you cannot "transfer" a subdomain to another registrar.

Let me get this straight:

You had a domain hosted at "registrar A"
And you wanted to transfer it to "registrar B"…
right?

Why did you change the A Record?

[ikthius]

"AshtonSanders" wrote:

Crap man. that doesn’t make any sense.

Some thoughts. Subdomains (ie websitedesign.websitesinaflash.com) must be connected with a domain (websitesinaflash.com). You can host subdomains separately from domain names, but you cannot "transfer" a subdomain to another registrar.

Let me get this straight:

You had a domain hosted at "registrar A"
And you wanted to transfer it to "registrar B"…
right?

Why did you change the A Record?

Host = A
Secondary registar = B

main site hosted at A
Sub-domain added on A
Sub-domain Name bought & registered at B
Transferred over to A
(this is when "A record" was changed to point to the correct place, details given by host at A)
everything working fine for a few months.

now sub domain name is in "Limbo" but unlocked so I believe that A has requested a take over, which will take 10 days, but client needing me to fix asap but he was handling all the transfers as I don’t have access to these accounts.

I got a reply eventually from the A who have suggested something, but I forwarded it on to client.

as of now I have copied the site and put it on a temp directory, they can explain about the transfer nightmare to joint partners.

[AshtonSanders]

Can you please define "sub-domain" ? It sounds like you have a very different definition. You can’t register sub-domains; you just add them to your previously-registered domain.

"ikthius" wrote:

Sub-domain Name bought & registered at B
Transferred over to A

What was transferred to A? Did you just change the DNS?

"ikthius" wrote:

(this is when "A record" was changed to point to the correct place, details given by host at A)
everything working fine for a few months.

It worked for months? What changed just before it broke?

[ikthius]

its ok, Zen got back to me and explained what can happen.

it is in a "limbo" state according to Zen.

the domain name was registered through uk2.net, part of tucows, uk2.net changed the A record of the domain to the server it was to point to (this is why it was working originally).

Then we asked for it to be transferred to Zen, once uk2.net released the domain, uk2.net deleted the A record, so no longer pointing to the correct server.

Tucows have the domain name, we paid for it, so Zen have requested that tucows transfer it, once this has been done, all will be ok, but it takes up to 10 days.

[TheDoc]

I think I see where my confusion was.

To clarify for your word usage next time, Iky, "subdomain" is a modification on domain. For example, store.nike.com. "Store" would be a subdomain of nike.com. As Ashton pointed out, that’s not something that you can actually register!

[AshtonSanders]

"TheDoc" wrote:

To clarify for your word usage next time, Iky, "subdomain" is a modification on domain. For example, store.nike.com. "Store" would be a subdomain of nike.com. As Ashton pointed out, that’s not something that you can actually register!

Yea, he didn’t answer, but I’m sure he was just using the term incorrectly.

I will admit, I’m not very familiar with "A Records" because I’ve never had to edit it. (It looks like it’s just an IP address that would automatically be updated with a DNS Update).

Whenever I have a domain hosted on another server, I just change the DNS. Then when you transfer your domain, the DNS settings is not (usually) deleted. So you never actually have any down time.

[Chris Coyier]

Yeah, the only time you really need to specifically mess with the A record on a subdomain is if you’ve got multiple servers set up for different purposes. Ie you host your main site on a fast local box with fast CPU and lots of RAM but not much data transfer, and you have your media downloads on a separate box that’s less powered but with a ton of bandwidth. You’d create an A record for media.domain.com to point to this other server.

I think Chris actually did a little tutorial on this a while back.. I learnt it from somewhere anyway! Was surprisingly easy to implement.

[Author]

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