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On 01/10/2015 13:35, Tanstaafl wrote: |
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> Thanks Alan (and everyone else), |
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> |
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> One important follow-up below... |
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> |
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> On 9/29/2015 8:28 PM, Alan McKinnon <alan.mckinnon@×××××.com> wrote: |
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>> It would be wise to clarify with the devs exactly what it is they are |
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>> looking for. |
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> |
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> That is the purpose of my upcoming phone call with him. |
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> |
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>> And overall, in your shoes I would be firm, adamant and above all polite |
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>> and say that infrastructure changes go through you and you alone, and |
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>> must be vetted by you with full transparency. |
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> |
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> That is what I've been doing so far, but I think the boss is getting |
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> close to just saying 'give it to them'... |
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Depending on how senior you are in the place, as technical guy you have |
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a duty to perform diligence. Persist. |
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> |
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> But - no one has addressed my main question... |
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> |
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> I understand that 301 redirects are performed by web servers only, you |
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> can't really do these in DNS. However, some Managed DNS providers - |
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> DNSMadeEasy included - offer this ability as a service. DNSMadeEasy |
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> calls them 'http redirects', and the actual redirect is accomplished by |
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> one of their own web servers they have set up to handle these. |
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Information is still sparse, so I'm having to fill in the blanks a lot. |
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Here's what I imagine is probably happening: |
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The only useful thing you can get out of DNS for an HTTP request is an A |
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record for an IP address. |
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Say you are example.com and do your own DNS; www.example.com is 1.2.3.4. |
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A SaaS provider can control your DNS and they set the TTL on that A |
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record very low so (like DynDNS does) they can point it at their web |
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servers. |
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A request comes in for http://www.example.com/index.html, and your DNS |
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cache needs to query it. The provider's DNS returns 2.3.4.5 which is the |
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provider's front end web server. That web server figures out the address |
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is your's, and issues a 301 to the user, which takes them to the |
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production web server with the real site on it. |
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Providers do this a lot so they can load balance web sites, redirect |
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users to local nearby web servers and other optimizations. The downside |
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is they need to control your DNS. |
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Me, personally I would never allow that, not for the entire domain. I |
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would rather delegate the specific address they want to control |
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(www.example.com) and let them tweak that all day if they like. |
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> Is it 'normal' to do these 301 redirects at the DNS level like that? I |
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> would think they should be using the current web server hosting the |
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> current site to start doing the redirects as they get the new landing |
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> pages done? |
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Depends what their business model is. If they deliver the full service, |
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they'd have to do something like I described above for it to work. |
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This is assuming the contractor is a full SaaS provider and not only a |
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web-site developement company |
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> Apache does this using a .htaccess file (if I'm interpreting |
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> my googling responses correctly). |
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An .htaccess file is nothing special, all it is is a config file that |
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can contain whatever directives are allowed in httpd.conf but applies |
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only to the directive .htaccess is in. Everything in .htaccess is a |
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valid directive that can go in httpd.conf, but not necessarily the other |
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way round. They are especially useful for shared hosting where you want |
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your customers to be able to tweak specific directives for their sites |
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and you can't give them access to httpd.conf and really can't be |
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bothered doing it for them for every requested change :-) |
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So when google gives a result saying "do it in .htaccess", that's the |
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internetz being meaningless. What it really means is "configure apache |
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to do a redirect for URLs that look like so" |
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> And now that I worded it that way - how would they do that exactly? |
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> Would the proper method be to redirect it to a new test domain, ie: |
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> |
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> www.example.com/page1.htm >> www.new-example.com/newpage1.htm ? |
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> |
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> Or save the new page on the old server, then do: |
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> |
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> www.example.com/page1.htm >> www.example.com/newpage1.htm ? |
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> |
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> Now I'm confusing myself... |
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It can get confusing. Best to ask them directly what they intend to do. |
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We can presume all day and never figure it out. |
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-- |
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Alan McKinnon |
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alan.mckinnon@×××××.com |
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