I have been attempting to set up a forwarding URL for community.allhiphop.com. I followed all documentation, I have set up the correct forwarding steps with our registrar (dotster), but nothing works. It all points to a Cloudflare error. I used the Cloudflare documentation at https://developers.cloudflare.com/fundamentals/get-started/basic-tasks/manage-domains/redirect-domain/ to set up forwarding rules in Cloudflare as well, but no luck. I have been on multiple support calls with our community host (vanilla forums), and our registrar, but no one can figure this out!
Can you help? I am trying to forward the subdomain community.allhiphop.com to
I hate to sound like a newb. community.allhiphop.com originally directed to our community on Vanilla Forums, which allowed us to set up a custom domain instead of using their URL, which would be something like vanilla.com/site#12345(https://success.vanillaforums.com/kb/articles/3-set-up-your-custom-domain)
I followed their instructions and deleted the custom domain (community.allhiphop.com) and re-registered the new one (theillcommunity.com) to avoid brand safety issues we were having with UGC in the community.
Once I did that, i thought it would be simple to create a new forwarding rule in our registrar. I did that, but had to contact support who sent me this message: “The subdomain you are attempting to forward is on Cloudflare. CName on the DNS.”
I contacted Vanilla again, and hopped on a call with them. We went into Cloudflare, and created a bulk URL re-direct (but it was switched to inactive and I can’t turn it back on. Screenshot attached. I also just made a re-direct rule myself (but I can only upload one to this thread since I am a new user here).
I am confused as to why I can’t just forward the subdomain and have to go through all of this, lol.
Ok, we did everything Cloudflare suggested, and additionally, we set up redirect rules. It still will not resolve, and the bulk redirect rule will not come on, it says “inactive.” screenshots are attached. The article says to use 192.0.2.1, and Cloudflare suggested we use 192.0.0.1. We created A records for both of these for the subdomain, but neither seems to be working.
Just to be clear, you seem to be using the wrong terminology here. Bulk redirects are static redirects based on a list. What you have set, as shown in the screenshot, is a single dynamic redirect, which is not based on a list, but on the criteria you defined (URI Full equals...).
Besides the typo already pointed by @anon9246926, you need to add a trailing slash for that logic to work, as the URL never gets to the server without it. You may not see it in your browser, but it adds a trailing slash before sending to Cloudflare/origin.
So when using URI Full representing the homepage URL, the URI Full field will always contain the / at the end of the URL: https://example.com/.
URI Full equals https://example.com/ << this will work
URI Full equals https://example.com << this won't
Also, your redirect will not carry any path or query string to the destination, and instead would redirect any request to the homepage of the destination domain. Even if you do not want to pass any given path or query string, you should create a logic that considers those elements, as user may input them. That’s why I think a better logic for a full redirect would be based on the Hostname field instead of trying to match URI Full.
