Hi

I just got my raq3 from 4webspace and I'm wondering how do I have to setup wildcards (I'm using their DNS services) to make a script like Forward Pro (from www.go2cgi.com) work.

I read something like there would be a problem because of "Cobalt URL re-writes" (whatever this is?)

Thanks in advance
Marcus

*.domain.com. IN A IP-adress

You'll have to edit httpd.conf and turn the rewrite crap off for the domain you're using... Also best to turn off UseCanonicalName... And you'll probably want to disable cgiwrap to decrease cpu usage...

On the tera-byte DNS you just set it to forward non-matching DNS requests to your IP...

The problem is that Raqs rewrites the URL. Like if you type domain.com you will se that it changes to www.domain.com.
To fix, you need to do this:

You need to edit your httpd.conf file for the domain you want to have *.domain.com working.

Put # infront of all REWRITE stuff. And add a *.domain.com to the ServerAlias.
(I think I found info about this in the cobalt maillist.)

That it. Restart the webserver, and everything should work.

I did this on a 4webspace server some months ago, but I'm not there anymore. Was kicked out because some (don't know how many) of my forwarding-users were SPAMing. So check your users before you give them forwardingservice.

/Tobbe
(Problems - email me)

(sorry, didn't see wofcats reply untill to late)

thanks for your replies. i'll try it out asap - which might take till tomorrow since i have to wait for the dns of my domains to update :(

Let me know about the results. :)

Was kicked out because some (don't know how many) of my forwarding-users were SPAMing.

Hmmm we're just talking about URL-Forwarding without any email accounts or something, don't we? So why did they "kick you"? Because the Redirector-URL you gave them was mentioned in those spam-mails?

btw the only thing I changed was "RewriteEngine On" to "RewriteEngine Off" for the specific domain. That was it!

And then all the script work for you then ?

Well, we didn't offer email then either.
We got kicked out, because people loved to hide their long url when spamming messageboards and sending spammail.
We deal instantly against spam, but as lots of peolpe use spamcop ( or checks the DNS ), they see that they should send spamcomplaints to tera-byte.com, and don't send complaints to us.

/Tobbe

And then all the script work for you then ?
The script works fine :) btw I'm not using go2cgi's forward pro anymore. We coded a custom php/mysql script which is really great ;)
If you need more information about redirection scripts just tell me what you want to know. It basically handles all the sub-domain redirection (for example it could redirect http://user.domain.com to http://www.whatever.com/members/user)

And concerning spam: we also have a zero tolerance policy against spam. And since we're using tera-bytes co-branded dns I hope that they report spammers to us and not to tera-byte.

mlx - I am curious to know how the url forwarding is going with your 4webspace account. Have you had to handle the spam issue with 4webspace ?!? How has the server performed. I'm presuming your script is reading a redirect url from a database? Also are you logging redirects? Would be great to know a little more as I am looking at hosting a site at 4webspace and was thinking of offering this service to my customers. Cheers :)

fortunately we did not have any spam problems on our server yet, so i did not handle anything with 4webspace. we also "only" have a raq3 but it performs quite well. this of course depends on how much traffic you have to redirect. we do not have that much members so it's no problem for our raq3 with 128 mb ram.
btw the php script we use is for sale at www.scripts24.com for $ 39.99. since i'm the author of this script i don't want to praise it since you won't trust me anyway but as far as i know it's the only php/mysql script of it's kind available.
it's logging the total pageviews of each account but that's currently it (no refferer logging or detailed daily stats)
hope that helps
regards
marcus
P.D. please excuse my bad english

i just thought i would point out there is no issues around running a redirection service and spam on tera-byte/4webspace. anyone running a redirection service will get spam complaints, the only time it becomes an issue is if those spam complaints are not dealt with quickly and efficiently (axe the spammer ASAP) we host a few redirection services the largest being ********. the difference is those spam complaints are always dealt with very quickly.

Steve

Steve is right, we got some warnings before we had to switch server.
But be sure you are able to check your email (the one you use when signing up) every 24 hours, else you can end up with your server shut down. Thats the rule they told us about after the first down time.

We were very happy with 4webspace servers and support, and have no complaints (except for the above, but I think most big companies will have the same rules).
Now are we hosted by a smaller swedish (we're from sweden) company, and they have time to make sure we know what's the problem before they would do something like shutting down our account. (But we havn't had one single spam-complaint since we moved. So we are really happy :) ).