Need to set up a Google App Engine domain

#1

Hi, I have a domain (xyz.com) that I’m trying to set up Google App Engine on. I bought the domain through DreamHost and set it to Google Hosted.

Unfortunately GAE doesn’t allow you to use just the naked domain (xyz.com); you have to use it with a subdomain (www.xyz.com).

So what I need to do is this: I need to have my base domain (xyz.com) fully hosted by DreamHost so I can put a redirect there. I need to have www.xyz.com as a CNAME record to ghs.google.com.

Unfortunately currently it seems I can either fully host it through DreamHost (in which case www.xyz.com is a non-editable CNAME to DreamHost) or I can Google host it (in which case the base domain points to Google and they stall out with a 404 when the user browses to http://xyz.com/).

Thanks for any help you can give.

#2

DH doesn’t allow you to just use their DNS service. If you use their name servers, you have to use their hosting on the primary domain: xyz.com.

Seems this domain is registered with them. I never register any domains with them so I don’t know if they allow you to modify the name servers of your doimain like other domain registrars do? If so, you may use a free DNS name server service frome verydns.net and then you can modify the record accordingly.

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#3

Eh? :s

Ahhh! :wink:

Under Fully Hosted options:

Do you want the www in your URL? ( Add WWW: Make http://example.com/ redirect to http://www.example.com/ )

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#4

Yeah, I know about the “add www” bit. It doesn’t work here, I tried it. If you Google host it, both xyz.com and www.xyz.com point to ghs.google.com, but the first is useless because Google refuses to work with naked domains (even Google Sites will only set up shop on subdomains).

Maybe I’ll just have to do something like both xyz.com and www.xyz.com being Dreamhosted and both of them redirect to en.xyz.com, but that solution doesn’t thrill me in the slightest.

#5

I’ve never had a problem with it (got a domain sitting in Panel right now with half a dozen custom A records and a custom www CNAME pointing somewhere else). If you’ve hit Fully Hosted without thinking just go into Manage Domains, hit Edit and scroll down the bottom and tap DNS Only. Then take a look in your DNS and you’ll see that you can do whatever you want with the records.

If you’re adamant that it won’t work on your account (for whatever reason) just have Support set the required key for you.

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#6

I finally got it working by doing Custom DNS, setting the CNAME for www to ghs.google.com, then setting it to Fully Hosted and setting the .htaccess for / to Redirect to the www address.

Thanks for all your help!

#7

Thanks, this worked for me too.

I had set everything up in custom DNS, but the naked domain was giving an httpd conf error even though the www domain worked with app engine fine. Switching the DNS back to fully hosted worked within 5 minutes of the transition (I think the .htaccess file was already set up so I didn’t need to do this step).