So, for Kinetics I have a co-located web server, and it’s got plenty of spare space on it, so I also bung other sites on it sometimes – my own photography site, a site for my dad’s band, a site for Common Wheel, etc. The local residents association also wanted some web help, so said no problem, they could have some space too. The bloke who set up their site to start with has just done it in Google Pages, and it’s a bit naff, so I set up a new virtual server, installed WordPress and PHPBB, and my other half spent several evenings customising stuff and writing all the text. So it’s all ready to go.

SO I sent an email off to the guy who owns the domain, telling him we’re ready to go, and all he has to do is point the domain to my DNS servers. Simple – it’s what I’ve done with all the other sites and it’s fine.

But he objects, he wants to do something with CNAME, and only wants to point some traffic for some reason – he thinks it’ll break Google Docs if he just points everything.

Firstly, I can’t see how; secondly, I don’t think it matters as only a couple of people share a couple of documents on Google Docs anyway; thirdly he’s annoying me as he seems to be a wannabe IT manager. He complained about WordPress, for example, as apparently it never works unless you do a lot of hacking in PHP. Hmm.

So, wee in his virtual shoes?

Have a jam sandwich 🙂

Could we all imagine the world without these Epicawesome problems!

Same as my battery problem 🙁

It sounds like he enjoyed being mr web designer and doesn’t want to give up control. No reason why he cannot update the DNS records that I can see from the info you have given.

So, wee in his virtual shoes?

Yup

Have a jam sandwich

Thanks to Somafunk, I can do better than that 🙂
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=445937388777964&set=a.269018493136522.62534.143261825712190&type=1&theater

Yeah, it’s one of those annoying little things – oh, I forgot the best bit, his last email ended with “I think we’ve discussed this as much as possible by email, we should meet in person” – is he asking me to step outside?

It sounds like he enjoyed being mr web designer and doesn’t want to give up control.

Yeah, I think so – except I’ve given him full access to everything on the virtual server, full FTP access, full admin access to WordPress, everything.

seems reasonable and normal. we have http://www.xxxx.org as our main site on one host, docs.xxxx.org goes out to google docs, mail.xxxx.org as webmail and photos.xxxx.org goes to our photos site which is on yet another host.

Is that what you mean or have I got it wrong?

As above, I suspect he liked being the one with the knowledge and resents you ‘taking over’.

I’d be a bit pee’d off if a site I’d done (however naff) was rewritten by someone with no discussion and presented to me as a fait accomplis (sp?) with a request to do a dns repoint, though.

It’s the residents association, not Sainsbury’s does it really matter if it looks a bit duff but someone else is happy to maintain it and just wants a bit of free server space?

I’m not sure exactly what he’s wanting to do – whether he’s wanting forum.xxxx.com to come to the forum I’ve set up and keep his original site, or whether he’s trying to direct http://www.xxxx.com to the WordPress site.

I don’t use Google Docs – is there any reason why pointing a domain to a new site would break anything? The docs are accessed through http://www.google.com/a/xxxx.com and he’s set up sharing with a few people. He seems to think that if xxxx.com points to a new site then Google Docs will stop working.

I’d be a bit pee’d off if a site I’d done (however naff) was rewritten by someone with no discussion and presented to me as a fait accomplis (sp?) with a request to do a dns repoint, though.

It’s the residents association, not Sainsbury’s does it really matter if it looks a bit duff but someone else is happy to maintain it and just wants a bit of free server space?

Oh yes, absolutely – but he initially wanted this as he said he didn’t have any time to do anything on the site, and he was trying to run it off a spare computer in his spare room, not a proper webserver. So he asked for this to start with – and I couldn’t care less if he dumps the WordPress site and handcodes it in HTML if he wants – he’s got full access to do that.

I think you are right on the Google docs – you could just redirect without breaking anything I think. More often though CNAMES let you keep your own domain name showing which is really what you want. Google docs seems to be an exception. So for us the photo site keeps our name but google docs switches to the google url.

Sounds like it would be better just to meet him – you might learn new tricks as well 🙂

Who hosts “your” DNS and how reliable are they?

He’s handing some control over to a third party and he’s entitled to have an opinion even if you don’t fully understand/grasp his logic.

Everything is fine until your dodgy DNS screws things up and he has to contact YOU to contact YOUR isp/host..

I use Ultraspeed – they’ve been brilliant for over 10 years 🙂

I can completely understand the loss of control thing, except this is what he asked for to start with, and he still has full control – the only extra control I have is I can delete the entire thing through WHM. But he still owns the domain so he can just point it somewhere else again.

Wordpress, for example, as apparently it never works

Tell him hore than 1/5 new websites are made on the wordpress platform, clearly it never works… 🙄

I fail to see why you remotely care. If he wants to do something creative with DNS and it doesn’t work, that’s his problem, no?

Why point the domain towards your DNS server?

Just give him an IP and domain name, for the A-Record???

Just tell him your IP, then he can do what he wants with his DNS as long as he gives you details for your host header.

Presumably he at least has MX records for email, which he’d like to keep active.

I suspect the Google docs stuff is related to their domain verification lark (which doesn’t apply after Google has verified you own the domain).

A CNAME is a pretty reasonable suggestion.

I fail to see why you remotely care…

Because he’s not on site?

Google Docs uses CNAME – map docs.domain.com to ghs.google.com

OP – why do you need control of the domain via DNS?