DNS for trial sites at temporary addresses.

[eddie69]

Hi,
Can anyone explain better how to setup DNS for trial sites created with Sitebuilder 2.0.
It is confusing to me if you have to configure a DNS zone per each trial account in order to preview the site. Even harder if a customer can change their site identifier on their own and then
that DNS zone will also have to change.
Any input!

 

[CiViX]

Yes, how should we set up DNS to support demosites?

I have added
sitebuilder.web2.sircon.net IN A 111.222.333.444
to DNS, and SB works fine. But to make the demosites work I thought I would have to add the following to the DNS of web2.sircon.net:
*.sitebuilder.web2.sircon.net IN CNAME sitebuilder.web2.sircon.net

However, this does not work... How should this be set up?

 

[eddie69]

To support demo sites

It seems to me that in order for those demo sites to be previewed you would have to manually set DNS zones everytime after your client changes its siteindentity.
I wonder why doing it this way, I could have been much simple just using "http://sitebuilder.your_domain.com/wizard/index.php?mode=preview&site_id=3ee42a9c740" for example....
the only problem with this is that when you have that option to send your site info via email , there is not a way to include
%siteid to be used only %sitelink, which brings you back to the same problem.
A client will recieve an email with a link in this fashion:
http://siteindentity.sitebuilder.your_domain.com instead of
http://sitebuilder.your_domain.com/wizard/index.php?mode=preview&site_id=siteindentity.
Does anybody have any ideas......

 

[benjiprince]

Here's what i am currently trying with some results.....

here then is a dns setting in plesk for a hypothetical example domain name called:

www.helpme.co

where a sitbuilder admin has chosen the name:

preview

for his/her testing user guest area

therefore in the sitebuilder admin login "publishing => trial site parameters => Sitebuilder domain name" box he/she has typed in the 'Sitebuilder domain name' of:

preview.helpme.co

then
login to plesk as admin or www.helpme.co domain name owner
select domains => domain name
click on dns button

in Add DNS record section
select from record type drop down list:

CNAME

click add button
in the 'Enter domain name' box type:

preview

in the 'Enter a canonical name' box type:

helpme.co

click ok to add the dns record.

now it figures that the domain address:
preview.helpme.co (entered domain name)
resolves to the domain http://www.helpme.co (cononical name)

together with the "Publishing => trial site parameter => sitebuilder domain name" entry as mentioned above of:
preview.helpme.co

you should have some common ground setup for a matching resolvement.

It follows from the above steps that when a visitor/user creates an account and keeps either the automatic siteid (eg. sc44skixd8q) or opts to change the name to a friendly title (mrplesk) then when this user types the following in the address bar of their browser:

http://mrplesk.preview.helpme.co

they go to the preview area in the sitebuilder server for this SiteID name of mrplesk

wallop, there launches the temporary site created for viewing....

I am having some result like this.... but in my case my web page is first blank and my temporary site won't appear until i click the restore/maximise button top right of the browser??

Anyone else got some thoughts on the above scenario and especially my final preliminary blank window result explained directly above this paragraph....

All the above is done at my risk with my server so if you implement any of the suggestions mentioned in this post it is your choice...
thanks

 

[eddie69]

thanks for your reply

I think I am missing a step or two.
I have followed your entry and still can't make this work.
I entered a DNS CNAME like you said, in my case preview.sanjuanhosting.com canonical sanjuanhosting.com.
at Sitebuilder Trial Site parameters entered preview.sanjuanhosting.com and when go to preview guest sites, I'll get http://anyname.preview.sanjuanhosting.com this page cannot be displayed.

 

[rspurlock]

A little different

Well, until SW-Soft makes it a preview in a link instead of a subdomain of a subdomain, we'll just do it a bit different.

Since you can control the content that the customer (potential) sees when they're done editing their site, we'll redirect them to the sitelogin.php url and tell them to log in to "preview" their site. It's a full preview that pops up including clickable links etc. And we don't have to worry about adding and removing thousands (we hope) of dns entries.

If anyone else has figured out a way to make the DNS version work simply, please let us know. That or continue to hope SW-Soft just makes it a link under the sitebuilder URL.

Rob

 

[benjiprince]

Hello
My sample user in the previous posted test notes had been granted publishing rights!

Maybe you can test this also to try and first get some means of a preview from the web address.
If it works let us know.
I am hoping that sw-soft can shed a better light on the matter for all of us instead our having to encumber all these time consuming experiments.
I cant figure out whether or not plesk are aiming to make the idea where each of the 100 granted sitebuilder websites can have a publish right to even the temporary area which is advertising your domain name in the address and also seems to have a header banner for your company. This as a commercial venture from your point of view as a hosting company means that there is a cost to remove the banner and purchase an upgraded account by the user.
Also it does work well in my mind to contemplate the notion of having a temporary area that simulates a web address like a sub-domain to your domain name without having to physically set one up in plesk panel, which as you probably know, every new sub-domain created inside the plesk panel would eat away at your 100 domains license as sub-domain creation is regarded by plesk as adding another full domain.

so, during the phase of trying my suggestions, I have granted publishing right to the userid in the sitebuilder admin described in my previous post.
I apologise that this was omitted from my posted testing notes.

I hope my notes are helpful but let me add that i am not an expert with any of the sitebuilder settings, but like many other people, i am trying to find a solution to get it working.

 

[benjiprince]

Heres a thought

I just tested the web-address scenario i have been trying on the other type of sitebuilder account setups

login to sitebuilder admin
physically create new trial =>
sample trial siteid name given => tester (no other privileges set at this stage)
go to webaddress from previous notes using trial name 'tester' => http://tester.preview.helpme.co
result => success, different webpage with a default plesk centre red text banner indicating that no site content has yet been
specified. Also an Edit button on the same page top left corner, and next to this Edit button the text is visible from the input box inside sitebuilder admin publishing button area => trial site parameters => Hosting banner message...

Clicking on the Edit button will take me to sitelogin page for potential website creation in sitebuilder other than that, at this stage, I did not assign a password to the siteid when created in sitebuilder admin..... so this page is also requesting just a password for login.

summary of this siteid creation parameters in sitebuilder 'site admin' is:

Status: D (i did not activate it on creation)
Publish: n/a (not applicable - i did not allow publishing rights on creation)
Type: Trial
Site Alias: tester
Creation Date: June 12 2005
Expiration Date: June 13 2005 (i only have one day setup for wizard in testing mode as wizard doesn't seem to be able for

deactivating in sitebuilder2

Conclusion:
from previous post, my notes on the need to have assigned publish rights for functionality of these types of setup are
incorrect as I am achieving results from web address access with site alias web address http://tester.preview.helpme.co and
the above random physical account setup in the sitebuilder admin panel.

Some extra thought regarding dns settings, it could be that also the need to have added dns setup for sitebuilder as follows in the dns list with the previous hypothetical names etc:

enter domain name: sitebuilder
enter canonical name: helpme.co

giving: sitebuilder.helpme.co

as an extra location in your listings ....

In addition, my first tests of sitebuilder2 rc were done on a local testing server. Although i have permanent internet connection it wasn't clear to me whether or not dns lookup was working for local ip functionality. I could not get the siteid temporary sites to work without physically adding the siteid name into the dns list as other people have been trying. I guess we all feel that having to generate a list of added dns addresses full of siteid names isn't a modern practical way of running the software. I do not think that plesk have designed it to work this way anyway as I am now having some new results since changing my testing location.

To be clear, all of my current posted trials and mini-successes to date are conducted on a remote production server.
If, like i was originally, you are trying these test on a local setup server, it could be a reason for the dns settings not resolving.
thats it 4 now

 

[weschyrchel]

Does this work?

So has anyone else tried this out? Is this working? I need to set up the DNS for trial sites and am trying to figure out the right way. If anyone can confirm the above procedure let me know.

 

[impressM_Hector]

I added an A record...
*.sitebuilder.domain.com
.. Worked, first shot...

 

[eddie69]

Using Sitebuilder API

I found a way around this whole issue.
Using the Sitebuilder API, I created a script that once a client account gets created for Plesk it also creates the sitebuilder account and I don't have to mess with site identities, password and DNS. I set this up to use the same username and password as used in PLESK. Pretty neat!

 

[Spyder]

Hi, Guys, besides the plesk account association, I need to know if/how some one can solve the problem wiht generic id to trial siltes.. example..


kasjkjksdfsdfjksdf.sitebuilder.domain.com

on version 1.x the trial site was.

sitebuilder.domain.com/kasjkjksdfsdfjksdf


but with actual design I must put an entrie in DNS, but this is an problem with dns TTL and propagation. ( and not so easy in my case my DNS servers are out of plesk control )

Tia.

Jr

 

[impressM_Hector]

Let's try this again...

I added an A record...
*.sitebuilder.domain.com
.. Worked, first shot...

Look closely... *.sitebuilder._YOU_.com
This means:
_any_trial_id.sitebuilder._you_.com will resolve correctly.

 

[Spyder]

OK, I got, but simpled put an CNAME ... it's the same..


Worked like a charm.. THANK's

Jr

 

[impressM_Hector]

Glad to help!

Seems many people have the same issue. Also, you may want to consider using an A record. I believe CNAME resolution is slower as it requires more than one DNS call... 2 I think.

 

[Cnote]

I love forums ;-)

got the DNS to work just fine setting the A record with *.

I have a question about the temp sites when you visit the temp address....

In the header it says... "EDIT"(button) with text beside it that says... you can buy hosting here (link)...

my question is, how can I set the (link) to redirect to my storefront?

Thanks for any help.

 

[Cnote]

Ha, never mind.. found it...


In Admin, click "Publish" then "Trial Site Parameters"

Cheers.