Tsohost site dedicated IP address confusion?

nightwish · 23 Aug 2013 at 12:42

Hi all,

I have a website hosted with Tsohost and 2 domain names registered with 123-Reg that I want to point at the website. I'm using 123-Reg's nameservers as I believe that Tsohost will only provide DNS hosting for 1 domain name with the 'Lite' hosting deal I'm on, and I have 2.

So I'm trying to setup A name records in 123-Reg to point to the IP address of my website hosted with Tsohost, and it's here that I've got stuck. The dedicated IP address reported in the Tsohost cPanel for the website is 195.62.28.140, but if I go to this address it's a different website, for a company called 'AceCompute', not mine. So when I setup the A name records with 123-Reg to point at this IP address, I get sent to this other website.

The weird thing is, and where I am getting really confused, is when I ping my site at ingleside-hotel.tsohost.co.uk, it resolves to 195.62.28.140, the same as shown as the dedicated IP address in the cPanel.

So, what gives? :confused:

Speed · 23 Aug 2013 at 13:11

Your best bet would be to contact Tsohost themselves to clarify the situation, they normally reply very quickly and are extremely helpful in my experience.

AJK · 23 Aug 2013 at 13:40

In short, there's more than one site responding on 195.62.28.140, and you need to configure the domain in your TSOHost control panel in order for web requests to that IP to find your site and not someone else's. If you can't actually do this in your TSOHost control panel, I suspect you'll need to buy a better package.

As Speed said: contact them, they'll respond quickly and will be able to explain exactly what you need.

Janesy B · 23 Aug 2013 at 15:15

One website doesn't mean one IP, the server (IIS/Apache) needs the http header to determine what directory hosts that resource otherwise it'll just end up with the default directory/page, which happens to be someone else's site.

Can you give me a screenshot of your DNS zone? As I don't think this is actually an issue...

For example, www.bryan-janes.co.uk works, and goes to my site. The IP is 188.65.117.67, but if you stick that straight in a browser, it gives you the default CPanel page. This is not a problem, it's just how hosting multiple websites for different domains on the same IP works.

www.ingleside-hotel.tsohost.co.uk works, so what's the problem?

nightwish · 23 Aug 2013 at 16:18

Thanks everyone. I'll contact Tsohost and see what they say.

Janesy B said:
One website doesn't mean one IP, the server (IIS/Apache) needs the http header to determine what directory hosts that resource otherwise it'll just end up with the default directory/page, which happens to be someone else's site.

For example, www.bryan-janes.co.uk works, and goes to my site. The IP is 188.65.117.67, but if you stick that straight in a browser, it gives you the default CPanel page. This is not a problem, it's just how hosting multiple websites for different domains on the same IP works.

OK, fine as far as it goes, but then how am I supposed to setup A name records with my domain registrar?

Janesy B said:
Can you give me a screenshot of your DNS zone?

Janesy B said:
As I don't think this is actually an issue...

There's an issue somewhere, as it doesn't do what I want! Although I accept the issue may be between chair and keyboard.

Janesy B · 23 Aug 2013 at 16:32

Okay looking at your DNS zone I see the problem.

You have a @. record, @.ingleside-hotel.co.uk isn't even a valid domain.

You have a wildcard for your other record, this might not even work. You need to setup www.ingleside-hotel.co.uk and also ingleside-hotel.co.uk to point to 195.62.28.140. In essence you will have to make a separate record for each subdomain you want, point it to that IP and then make sure that subdomain is set up in cpanel. As I said, there isn't really an issue, it's your misunderstanding as to how DNS/shared hosting works

Your MX records look a bit funky too.

Here's mine for example:

I have my DNS and hosting with TSOHost, but the principle is the same.

In essence your records should look like this:

daz · 23 Aug 2013 at 16:33

Add the domain under Parked Domains to point it to your main public_html or Addon Domains to point it to a separate site. The issue here is that Apache has no idea what domain you're pointing it to, so it's just loading the first vhost on that IP address. You need to add the domain to your cPanel and then it will add the right records to Apache for you.

nightwish · 24 Aug 2013 at 07:47

Janesy B said:
Okay looking at your DNS zone I see the problem...

Thanks for taking the time to look at that, but I *think* that's just 123-Reg's way of displaying things:

Those exact entries are used when reverting to the defaults, with the IP addresses changed to point at 123-Reg parking.
123-Reg's domain name guide at http://www.123-reg.co.uk/support/cr...uides/DNS Management/DNS Management guide.pdf explains @ records thus:

The record named @ refers to your domain name in its purest form with no subdomain like www i.e. domain.com

Click to expand...
123-Reg won't even allow me to enter a record for inglesidehotel.co.uk - apparently the hostname is not valid. When I add www.inglesidehotel.co.uk, it strips off everything but the www.

daz said:
Add the domain under Parked Domains to point it to your main public_html or Addon Domains to point it to a separate site. The issue here is that Apache has no idea what domain you're pointing it to, so it's just loading the first vhost on that IP address. You need to add the domain to your cPanel and then it will add the right records to Apache for you.

This is sounding like what I need. So I need this configuration, as well as nameservers and DNS settings correctly setup, for everything to work properly?

Trouble is I seem to only have 1 parked domain to use, and 2 domains I want to point at the website. Can I just request another, or do I need to upgrade my hosting package?

Deleted member 77746 · 24 Aug 2013 at 10:46

Personally I would transfer the domains to TSOhost then there won't be any need to mess about.

nightwish · 31 Aug 2013 at 10:24

Update: Problem solved

Just updating this with what I've learnt in case any else has a similar issue.

In addition to the usual nameserver and DNS settings, and depending on your host, you may need additional settings to point each of your domains to the correct website on the webserver, as a webserver may serve multiple websites at the same IP address.

At Tsohost, they call these settings 'parked domains' (I'm not sure whether this is a standard term or not). I had 2 domains I wanted to point to my website, but only 1 parked domain configured. After requesting an additional one from Tsohost and configuring it, everything now works fine.

Thanks all for you help.

p_r_i_m_e · 5 Sep 2013 at 20:46

I'd 2nd the transfer of everything to Tsohost away from the useless idiots that are 123-reg

GeX · 11 Sep 2013 at 11:18

p_r_i_m_e said:
I'd 2nd the transfer of everything to Tsohost away from the useless idiots that are 123-reg

123-reg haven't done anything wrong here. It's TSOHost using settings for 'parked' domains in an odd way.

I have most of my domains registered through 123reg, all point the same IP (my own server) and that uses server blocks in nginx to work out what to use as content based on the http header.