Forwarding subdmomain to a different host

#1

Hello all, another quick domain question:

I have a domain with a bunch of subdomains on it. The main www domain is hosted at Dreamhost. One of the subdomains I want to point to an account hosted elsewhere, as forum.mydomain.com

I need to set up a CNAME record for this domain, right? The problem is, I don’t seem to have the URL to put inside the CNAME record.

I have the URL of the website host that is running my forum, but that’s not working. I also have the IP address (72.36.139.202) of my account on said host-- but this won’t work either, because the Dreamhost Control Panel says “Invalid: “202” is not a valid TLD for a domain!”

I looked in the wiki but couldn’t find any help. I guess my question is: what are the steps to creating a subdomain that forwards to an external host?

thanks for any help!

#2

If you want to point the sub-domain at your other host by IP address, you need to use an A-Record, not a CNAME.

Mark

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#3

Will changing my A record preempt my www.mydomain.com domain (which is hosted on dreamhost) ??

There is already an A record going to my Dreamhost IP - should I delete this A record?

If had other similar subdomains to forward later on, can I add additional A records, or can there be only one?

Thank you!!

#4

No! The main A-Record specifies which IP address the parent domain resolves to. In-fact, I doubt you can delete the main A-Record anyway, as it should be in the ‘non-editable’ area.

You need to add an additional A-Record for each sub-domain that you wish to point to an external IP address. You do this in the same way that you previously added your CNAME. For example, to create an A-Record to point the sub-domain ‘example’ to the IP address 123.123.123.123 you would add the following record;

Name: example
Type: A
Value: 123.123.123.123

Good Luck.

Mark

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Save [color=#CC0000]$50[/color] on DreamHost plans using [color=#CC0000]PRICESLASH[/color] promo code (Click for DreamHost promo code details)