Redirecting only the main domain to go someware else?

#1

I don’t know if this would fall under the general troubleshooting category, but I want to just redirect a domain ( none of my subdomains) to a different ip on a different server with a different provider, but still keep my dreamhost name servers

I have the setup all ready to go, but I can’t seem to do this. I tried the following.

  1. Create an dns record for the domain pointing to the new ip. I can do this with subdomains but not my main domain.
  2. redirect the site. That failed.

I don’t think cloaking or mirroring is what I want, so where do I go from here?

Take care to all.

#2

When you change your main domain’s DNS record, you may not have full access to do it from cPanel itself. You probably could do it from advanced DNS editor, though I will look to see. Otherwise, you would require root access if this was your server, to manually edit the DNS file for your main domain.
The easiest way you can do it is changing your main domain’s A record, to the new server’s IP.
As an example, you have a main domain of: test.com. Your domain DNS record is
$TTL 14400
test.com. 86400 IN SOA ns1.test.com. webmaster.test.com. (
2016031701 ;Serial Number
86400 ;refresh
7200 ;retry
3600000 ;expire
86400 )

test.com. 86400 IN NS ns1.test.com.
test.com. 86400 IN NS ns2.test.com.

ns2 14400 IN A 10.0.0.2
ns1 14400 IN A 10.0.0.1

test.com. 14400 IN A 94.208.52.0
Replace the IP address’s and NS values with your own. However, that’s the general idea of how your DNS record should look like.
The last part, where it says
test.com. 14400 IN A 94.208.52.0
Is your main domain. The period (.) after the TLD (in this case dot com), denotes a main domain. Subdomains will not have a period like, test.com., because they aren’t your primary domain.
A primary domain always has a period after it’s TLD, as it’s the primary DNS zone.
If you had a sub domain called podcast, it should look as follows (replace IP address’s to match your setup):
podcast 14400 IN A 10.0.0.1
I hope that helps. Send me a PM if you still have trouble.

#3

Hello there, in following the directions DreamHost gave me I now have dns only hosting for the domain. I don’t yet see it propagating as when I ping the domain it still shows dreamhost’s ip not the one I set in the A record. What can I do from here to make sure this works?

#4

Wait 4 hours.

Have you checked whatsmydsn.net ?

#5

Cool site. Hadn’t heard of it (whatsmydns.net). I tried whatsmydsn.net, hoping to find out which Deep Space Network I was using, but no dice.