Can I point a domain off my IP, to a domain I don't own?

[pale]

[ I may have misposted this in Resellers/General; I posted a while ago and didn't get a reply]

I've figured out domain, sub-domain, and parking. I've set up a few of these through the WHM without any problem.

I'm interested if I can do something similar to domain pointing, but pointing to another host which I do not own or manage. I'd like to do this at the DNS level, so I don't have to write a redirect HTML page, or use frames.

Here's the situation:

My friend has 3 domains, say "main.com", "second.com", "third.com". His hosting company allows him to use "main.com", but charges him $5 per month to park or point any other domains on top.

I figure I can do this for him, by having him change the name servers on "second.com" and "third.com" to mine (I bought name servers here :-) and I'll point them for free, or say, charge him $5/year. It'll help pay for my reseller account and save him $55/year per domain. Win, win.

So, if this is possible, let's say:

"second.com" ---> "main.com"
(basic park, but on another server, where navigating "second.com" is indistinguishable from navigating "main.com")

"third.com" ---> "main.com/friends/third/index.html"
(where the connection looks like "http://third.com/index.html", and all relative navigation in the "/friends/third/" directory structure maintains "third.com" as the domain name)


Hope that's clear. Thanks in advance for your help,

pale

[pale]

Well, I messed around with this myself and managed to get a domain I own to point to another IP address on another server using "Add a DNS Zone" in the WHM. However, I'm no longer able to modify or delete the DNS Zone for that domain.

I get "Access Denied, you don't seem to own [domain name]".

I'm guessing that since the IP in the db doesn't match mine, it doesn't want to let me edit it.

How do I get it back?

[TechWeasel]

I have no suggestions for reclaiming the domain (it sounds like you might need someone with root access to fix it... I'd suggest putting in a helpdesk ticket)

However, I did want to suggest a way that you can do an "out of site" redirect (and be able to modify it after the fact).

Set up your friends domain under the WHM (just like you were making a new account) but instead of putting any information in the account just add the following script to your .htaccess:

RewriteEngine on
rewriterule ^(.*)$ http://www.whateveryouwant.tld/$1 [R]

Mod Rewrite is a very powerful tool for handling redirects and lets you do many neat tricks (redirecting to subdirectories, filtering redirects based on IP...etc).

I'm assuming it's an installed module on all the servers, it's certainly on mine.

Caution Treat Mod Rewrite with respect: as it controlls site access you can inadvertently lock yourself out of your own website if you're not carefull.

I don't claim to be a master, but there's lots of good articles on google for the interested.


For those of you who have been reading the forums this week, I promise to try and cut back on my evangilizing of ".htaccess"... for at least a couple of days. Promise.