Hi all. I realize this is a simple thing but I feel like I know just enough about DNS to possibly mess things up! And other responses here don’t “quite” answer my questions.
I need to add a DNS record to enable access to a new subdomain (staging site) at my host, titled staging3.[mydomain].com . I’ve added a CNAME record that points to the first of 2 IP addresses provided by them. My questions:
Is CNAME the correct type of record to add or should it be an A record? (I chose CNAME)
Do I need to add a record for each of the two nameservers? (I’ve just added one)
Should the Proxy Status be DNS Only (grey cloud) or Proxied (orange cloud)? (I’ve set it to DNS Only).
Really appreciate any clarity you can provide. Thanks!
Not sure where the CNAME comes in, but you’d just need two additional staging3 A records pointing to the two IP addresses you mentioned. That should be it if I understood you correctly.
As for proxying, that’s really up to you. As long as everything involves only HTTP you can proxy them.
Thanks, so it sounds like A records are fine, no need for it to be a CNAME record? (I see lots of reference online to doing this with a CNAME record.) I’ll make it 2 A records as you suggest, and I’ll go ahead and proxy them.
Well, I took a closer look at the provided nameserver info from the hosting company, and I realize that the numerical part is identical, it’s just the named part that differs in the usual manner, one starts with “ns1” and one with “ns2”. Here’s an anonymized version:
Hmm. The domain name is registered at GoDaddy; proxied here at Cloudflare of course; and the hosting is at SiteGround (where I created the staging site). But I can’t access it yet, since SiteGround doesn’t handle the DNS.
So same question, sub-domain or hostname? You mentioned the former but your description sounds like the latter. If it is the latter you just need an A record and point it to the desired address, that’s it.
It’s a subdomain, I’m sure of that. If the site were called mysite.com, I created a staging site which has been assigned the address staging3.mysite.com - but I can’t reach it.
A sub-domain involves nameservers and delegation. In that case you need to create NS records and point them to your third-party nameserver and manage everything there.
Sorry, I confess I’m getting more confused (and I thought I had at least a tenuous grasp of this stuff). The setup is:
Site hosted at SiteGround
Domain name registered at GoDaddy
At GoDaddy, nameservers are pointing to Cloudflare
Here at Cloudflare is where I see all the DNS settings for the site (15 different DNS records in total).
So Cloudflare as I understand it is where I “manage everything”… yes?
These nameservers are not configured for staging3 as domain, so that won’t be a sub-domain but a regular hostname as mentioned in the original response.
You just need one A record for that IP address and that’s it.
Keep in mind it won’t work with “www” as the proxy certificates do not cover that and you’d need a paid certificate.
