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It amazes me that services like redirect.pizza actually exists. Not the free part, I get that, but that they are actually able to sell a functionality that is so extremely easy to do yourself. Why would anyone pay to have a website redirected? It just baffles me.
Especially with their request limits, when Cloudflare, for example, has none.
Just because it is easy to do yourself, doesn't mean it would be free to do yourself.
Why would anyone pay? Think the less tech oriented people that want someone to 'yell' at when it isn't working.
That site isn't showing me the prices, so I don't know how much they are charging.. Email forwarding is a little more complex than HTTP, but yeah.. No one here would pay to re-direct a domain but that doesn't mean that no-one would pay.
I would use Cloudflare for this, if I could. In fact, Cloudflare is what I use for the majority of my domains, since I then have the option to easily use their other services with those domains.
The issue here is that these domains are not on the DNS Public Suffix List, so Cloudflare refuses to service them in their free tier. These domains are like a sub-delegated subdomain from other root/apex domains.
Actually, these domains objectively should be in the Public Suffix List, but for whatever reason they aren't. They are RFC1480 .US locality based domains, such as domainname.reston.va.us
Where do I setup a web/url redirect in Cloudflare's free tier? I actually would like to do this for some of my domains on Cloudflare's DNS.
Bingo. I haven't found an easier, simpler, more intuitive, web-GUI based DNS than HE. (At least in the free services.)
I would use this gladly, as this would be the simplest way to go about it and would, by definition, work with any DNS provider. The issue is that I cannot use a CNAME for apex/root/naked domain.
Actually, I now just started reading about a DNS record known as ALIAS (or ANAME) that, apparently, does permit pointing an apex/naked domain to an external domain, in the same fashion as a CNAME. If anyone has any insight on this, and whether it is universally supported, it seems like it might be an excellent option.
Not only registrars free DNS. One that I'm thinking of is ZoneEdit, which has (and still does) offer free web forwarding with their free tier. But, as others have mentioned above, other examples are Afraid (which I've also used for decades), Cloudflare, NS1, 1984, GleSYS, etc.
RTFM?
Page rules, two rules for each domain, one for www. and another without.
https://developers.cloudflare.com/rules/page-rules/how-to/url-forwarding/
Look at the advanced section to include after the / in the forwarding/redirects.
If va.us requests that they be, they will be.
It's a bit more complicated. All state's second-level domains (va.us, ny.us, ca.us, etc.) are controlled directly by the .US Registry. Even third-level city domains, such as reston.va.us, are controlled by a mix of either directly by the .US Registry or by dozens of different third-party administrators who were mostly assigned to them in the 1980s and 1990s. You can check http://www.whois.us/ to see who controls which. This may also be useful: https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc1480
I believe this is the recommended way of forwarding whole domains with Cloudflare today @JosephF
https://developers.cloudflare.com/fundamentals/setup/manage-domains/redirect-domain/
Right
(But your example was
)
www.example.com, which has a subdomaindns.he.net supports ALIAS records, so this is a plus
I've never needed to use ALIAS records, so I don't have experience with them, but they may work for your use case. ALIAS is incompatible with DNSSEC, but this may not be a showstopper in your case
Actually, in this case it most likely is. If you need to redirect a website, you most likely already have a webserver. Hence, you can do the redirect yourself, at no extra cost.
When the redirect isn't working? Seriously?
If a company cant make a redirect work I would never ever do business with them. In this case the company's whole business idea is to sell redirects, so even more so here.
Yes it is. Click on "Pricing" and it shows the prices.
Evidently so, and that is what I do not understand. I can accomplish a redirect with one line of text written in notepad and saved as a .html, so this really baffles me.
I guess that if you have a company that has many domains that frequently need to be redirected, it's convenient to pay for a service (like redirect.pizza ) that offers an API to make this easier for you
But it's not clear to me how many companies really have this need and yet don't have a system administrator already on-board who can set/change some redirects when needed
(That all said, don't forget "Analytics", which is also offered by redirect.pizza !
)
I did.. Just because it shows you, doesn't mean it is the same for everyone else.
I see the plans, the prices are just a grey blur.
I’m on my phone so I can’t verify this, but sounds like it’s fetching the prices and you’re for some reason blocking the request?
True, some value added I guess but then again, analytics is something any webmaster worth a damn should be able to do himself.
And as you say, any company big enough to really need this kind of stuff should already be able to do it themselves. To be interested in this kind of service you need to have a lot of domains and websites, and then you probably already have people running them that can do this themselves at no cost at all.
But if they are able to sell it and make a living, all credits to them. There are a lot of business out there that I simply can not fathom how they even exist, so it is not the first time I don't understand something.
With the exception of Cloudflare (which has additional non-DNS features that some may desire or find useful and therefore use them for DNS as well), does anyone here have a strong or specific preference for another free DNS provider they feel is superior to HE?
If so, how would you articulate why you find whichever free DNS provider(s) that may be is notably superior to HE DNS?
As i've said earlier i haven't used HE yet so i can't really compare it. I just use Namecheap's DNS because i'm lazy.
One drawback is that HE free DNS doesn't support DNSSEC unless you use HE as slaves only. But it doesn't matter to me since I run my own primary DNS server which does support DNSSEC (and use HE free DNS as slaves).
Aside possibly from DNSSEC, is there any reasons to prefer the free tiers of ZoneEdit, NS1, ClouDNS, Afraid or whatever other free DNS services I may have missed, over HE? (Or, vice versa, reasons to prefer HE over those others.)
I said before, I greatly prefer HE's DNS service.
The only thing it is lacking is an API (it does have one but it very restricted on functionality).
I like that it is simple and easy to use. It seems to be made for tech people, it is plain, not 'flashy' so very usable, whatever you want to do doesn't require a 'lot' of mouse clicks.. Tab works to move between fields..
Focus on functionality, not on looks.
Yeah, at least from what i got looking into the subject that seems to be the smartest approach here. Run your own DNS server and then have some free ones act as slaves while preferably hiding your own server. This way you get the best of both worlds. Full control over your DNS combined with the reliability of the big providers. It's just my purely theoretical view though, so real world experiences might differ.
I'm using he.net for slave DNS service, with the master (nsd) running on my vps. When I looked into it, it seemed like the best free service for that purpose. When I used Linode, they had slave DNS service available themselves.
Is there some benefit to hiding your own DNS server?
Porkbun’s DNS services support redirects, are actually powered by cloudflare behind the scenes, support letsencrypt-powered HTTPS, and can be used with “external domains” that they are not the registrar for. You’d be giving up he.net DNS but I’ve found them to be very developer-friendly (api access, lots of 2fa options).
Well, not necessarily. It's just that it can't be targeted if it isn't known and someone like HE can probably tank a little more than some random $12/y VPS. It basically makes sure that your central server stays up and can continue to serve requests.
My opinion.. Not so much about hiding the source as it is control over provisioning/updates.
But hiding the source can be important for DoS mitigation.. You can take down any site if you overload their NS hosts.
How does Porkbun's free DNS (available for domains not registered with Porkbun) compare to HE and Cloudflare (directly), regarding features and ease of use other than API and 2FA options?
I've never used he.net's DNS so I can't compare. Cloudflare's page rules are seemingly much more powerful (Porkbun doesn't have variables or anything like that - just the basic 301/302 and whether or not to pass along the path, but for the most common use case, this is sufficient and overall easier to manage for most of my use cases.
What about Cloudflare's implementation makes it more complicated to manage than Porkbun's implementation?
I’ve never actually set up cloudflare redirects, but considering the number of forum posts I’ve seen asking about the best way to do it, a single text field where I type in the url and a few checkboxes determining the status code incurs much less cognitive load overall. It’s not HARD, but Porkbun is just simpler. In my particular use case too I wanted a registrar as well which didn’t force me to use their own name servers.
That part I agree with. I don't use Cloudflare as a registrar, for that exact reason. Otherwise I would. But I do use Cloudflare for DNS, with my domains being registered with another registrar (generally Spaceship).
I utilize HE's DNS for domains that Cloudflare doesn't accept (on their free tier) because they're not on the Public Suffix List.
In the past (until very recently, actually) I've utilized ZoneEdit (on their free tier), but I've migrated them to, and consolidated with, HE.