vim.org is down
JasonWoof
There is no A record for the domain name vim.org. That is,
this link shouldn't work:
http://vim.org/
Some browsers have a hack, where upon getting a failed DNS
response, will try adding "www." to the beginning, but some won't.
And some of us use a DNS resolver (like opendns) that brings us to
a search page for things with no A record.
It is extremely rare for a site not to work without (the admitedly
redundant) "www." prefix.
Now I'll admit, that people who type domain names tend to be more
technical, and that people will mostly be able to find your site
anyway, but it is irritating, needlessly wastes people's time, and
makes you look bad. More than once, I've typed "vim.org" in the
address bar, gotten an error page, then went to google to find your
site.
Please make http://vim.org/ work, either my redirecting to
http://www.vim.org/ or as an alternate address.
Thank you, - Jason
Marc Weber
That this topic is being written about again and again is a reason to
change it. IMHO.
Marc Weber
Ben Schmidt
> There is no A record for the domain name vim.org. That is,
> this link shouldn't work:
>
> http://vim.org/
That's correct, actually. Not only doesn't it work, but it shouldn't
work. It is a shame people have abused DNS and expect it to work.
To some extent, I agree. It'd be nice to 'fix' this, just to silence the
noise on the mailing list.
But how?
We can't CNAME it; it would be against spec, and would break things. We
can't add an A record, because sourceforge might change it under us
and/or we don't know what magic they might be doing with load balancing,
etc. that we would irresponsibly bypass if we did that.
Perhaps the simplest thing is to get some cheap 'DNS hosting' that
offers a 'redirect' function. Basically the function just has a server
listen on port 80 for requests and return a 3xx (preferably 301 in our
case) redirect (to http://www.vim.org/ in our case) whenever it gets
one. No smart URL rewriting or anything. We might already have it (it
commonly is included with domain names in my experience) and just need
to set it up. If not, in my experience, it's very cheap, something like
a year's worth of hosting for the price of a glass of fruit juice.
Because it's actually a webserver, not done in DNS, it bypasses the
DNS-related difficulties, and because it's such a simple task and it
should be low-traffic anyway, loading isn't an issue.
Ben.
Benjamin R. Haskell
> Marc wrote:
>> There have been lot's of discussion about this on the mailinglist. That
>> this topic is being written about again and again is a reason to change it.
>> IMHO.
>
> To some extent, I agree. It'd be nice to 'fix' this, just to silence the
> noise on the mailing list.
>
> [...]
>
> Perhaps the simplest thing is to get some cheap 'DNS hosting' that
> offers a 'redirect' function. Basically the function just has a server
> listen on port 80 for requests and return a 3xx (preferably 301 in our
> case) redirect (to http://www.vim.org/ in our case) whenever it gets
> one.
I've taken the liberty of doing just this for vim.org on my own webhost. (I
have ten domain names included in my plan, and I'm only using eight). If an
'A' record for vim.org were created with the value 64.130.10.15
(www5.pairlite.com = benizi.com), this would work instantly. I did what I
outlined in my post[1] from the last time this came up, but even more simply:
www5$ cat vim.org/.htaccess
Redirect permanent / http://www.vim.org/
--
Best,
Ben H
[1] http://groups.google.com/group/vim_use/msg/d9e1ce19939ae9ad
Ben Schmidt
>> offers a 'redirect' function. Basically the function just has a
>> server listen on port 80 for requests and return a 3xx (preferably
>> 301 in our case) redirect (to http://www.vim.org/ in our case)
>> whenever it gets one.
>
> I've taken the liberty of doing just this for vim.org on my own
> webhost. (I have ten domain names included in my plan, and I'm only
> using eight). If an 'A' record for vim.org were created with the value
> 64.130.10.15 (www5.pairlite.com = benizi.com), this would work
> instantly. I did what I outlined in my post[1] from the last time this
> came up, but even more simply:
>
> www5$ cat vim.org/.htaccess
> Redirect permanent / http://www.vim.org/
Verified; this is working.
Ben.
Ben Schmidt
Just to clarify, I don't mean that it's working for end users; I just
mean it looks to me like the server is responding correctly, so if our
DNS admin agrees to make the change outlined above, things should go
smoothly.
Ben.
John Beckett
> Just to clarify, I don't mean that it's working for end
> users; I just mean it looks to me like the server is
> responding correctly, so if our DNS admin agrees to make the
> change outlined above, things should go smoothly.
Here is a rehash from the August 2010 thread:
http://groups.google.com/group/vim_dev/browse_thread/thread/36b81acf60548c20
I pointed out that it is a simple DNS issue, and gave some
examples of Sourceforge sites that have chosen to add an
A record for the domain (vim.org for us) in their DNS.
Also, anyone can browse http://vim.org/ ok if they put the
following in their hosts file:
216.34.181.97 vim.org
Searching the above thread for "This is by design" shows the
response from the vim.org DNS manager. Unless we double their
pay, I don't think we should expect a change of mind.
My purpose for posting is to say that no web redirect service is
needed, and I still think that it is not advisable to disturb a
very reliable DNS service.
John
Ben Schmidt
>
> I pointed out that it is a simple DNS issue, and gave some
> examples of Sourceforge sites that have chosen to add an
> A record for the domain (vim.org for us) in their DNS.
> 216.34.181.97 vim.org
Turns out you're right, John, though I couldn't find any actual evidence
in your mail or the thread you cited to prove it. :-)
However, this page does prove it:
http://sourceforge.net/apps/trac/sourceforge/wiki/Custom%20VHOSTs
Since SF recommend it, putting an A record for the bare domain must be
OK and not mess up their load balancing or anything (though without
checking their docs, we couldn't have known that; another project's
doing it doesn't make it right).
IMHO, it would be wise to update our config so that it matches SF's
recommendation.
I agree with the DNS admin that people *should* use www. I don't really
think people should use Chrome either, which is where the problem rears
its head because Chrome doesn't automatically add the www for you if it
has a failure. But that doesn't necessarily mean we shouldn't support
it. In fact, IMHO, "I have an opinion" is a pretty poor reason not to do
something, and other good reasons not to do this seem to be vanishing.
Might as well take a few seconds to update the config and help these
guys out.
Ben.
John Beckett
> Turns out you're right, John, though I couldn't find any
> actual evidence in your mail or the thread you cited to prove it. :-)
>
> However, this page does prove it:
> http://sourceforge.net/apps/trac/sourceforge/wiki/Custom%20VHOSTs
Interesting docs, thanks. BTW while in general defining an A
record for vim.org would not be sufficient when several websites
are hosted at the one IP address, the fact that putting the
entry that I showed in your hosts file works does prove that
adding the DNS A record would work (although of course it is
ideal to know that Sourceforge support that, and it will work in
the future).
I suggest you try Bram, and see if he wants to ask for the
change. I'm still in "let sleeping dogs lie" camp.
John
Ben Schmidt
> Ben Schmidt wrote:
>> Turns out you're right, John, though I couldn't find any
>> actual evidence in your mail or the thread you cited to prove it. :-)
>>
>> However, this page does prove it:
>> http://sourceforge.net/apps/trac/sourceforge/wiki/Custom%20VHOSTs
>
> Interesting docs, thanks. BTW while in general defining an A
> record for vim.org would not be sufficient when several websites
> are hosted at the one IP address, the fact that putting the
> entry that I showed in your hosts file works does prove that
> adding the DNS A record would work (although of course it is
> ideal to know that Sourceforge support that, and it will work in
> the future).
O, I never said it wouldn't *work*. It just might not be reliable or
responsible. If SF changed things, it would break, and if they were
doing load balancing or geotargetting with DNS, we'd be bypassing it by
hard-coding in a static IP, so could screw things up for them.
> I suggest you try Bram, and see if he wants to ask for the
> change. I'm still in "let sleeping dogs lie" camp.
Well, I've given my opinion: I think it would be a nice thing to do for
those who want it, it is technically feasible, wouldn't hurt anything,
and I can see no good reason not to do it. But I don't actually care
about it, and it doesn't affect me. So, if anyone's going to actually
push for it, or put in extra work to convince Bram/our DNS admin (sorry
I don't know his name!)/anyone else relevant to make the change, it
won't be me.
Smiles,
Ben.
Tony Mechelynck
Me too. If you want to be able to address vim.org without the www., then
either use a browser which adds it, or put in your hosts file the line
mentioned a couple of posts earlier, and you'll never see that there is
no A record that your DNS server can find.
Though if the nluug.nl admin (or someone) were to add a vim.org A record
(for that domain which I don't use anyway) with a redirect to
www.vim.org, I would certainly raise no hue and cry against it.
Best regards,
Tony.
--
We are going to give a little something, a few little years more, to
socialism, because socialism is defunct. It dies all by itself. The
bad thing is that socialism, being a victim of its ... Did I say
socialism?
-- Fidel Castro
MC Andre
> either use a browser which adds it, or put in your hosts file the line
> mentioned a couple of posts earlier, and you'll never see that there is
> no A record that your DNS server can find.
Could the DNS admin please drop in whatever configuration is necessary to achieve this redirect?
Marvin Renich
> an automatic redirect to www.vim.org, without requiring any special
> user configuration. Tips like "modify your hosts file" assume the user
> is already an advanced user, defeating the whole purpose of this
> request.
>
> Could the DNS admin please drop in whatever configuration is necessary
> to achieve this redirect?
a host name, not a domain name or service name. This is by design. The
hostmaster is free to make www.example.org and example.org point to the
same host, if he desires, but it is not now, nor ever has been,
mandatory. If you are given a URL, use it; don't strip the leading www.
If you are not given a URL, Google for Vim to get the correct URL. This
is what I would expect a newbie to do. I see nothing wrong with not
having the domain name be a synonym for the web-serving host.
This topic has been discussed on this list several times before, with
the same answer every time. If the hostmasters were so inclined, they
would have changed this already.
...Marvin
Andrew Pennebaker
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