How to Use Your Own Domain with pagekite.me

[Lane Lester]

Bjarni said in another thread:

If your goal is just to use your domain with pagekite, you can still use the pagekite.net service - you need to set up a CNAME. That is currently not well enough documented on the site, so feel free to ask questions if it's confusing - and I'll recycle the answers to improve the website. :-)

The registrar for the domain I want to try first has these fields to be completed:

Host:
TTL: (one option is 1D, and there are many others)
Type: (Here's where you put CNAME, A, etc.)
Value:

The relevant part of the manual seems to be:

Generally if you have a single fixed front-end, you can simply use a static DNS entry, either an A record or a CNAME, linking your site's domain name to the IP address of the machine running the front-end.

So, if the front-end's name is foo.com with the IP address 1.2.3.4, and your website is blah.foo.com, then you would need to configure the DNS record for blah.foo.com as a CNAME to foo.com or an A record to 1.2.3.4.

I'm not sure if the Host should be flywith.pagekite.me or pagekite.me, based on the above. I have no clue about the TTL or Value. I presume the Type should be CNAME.

Lane

[Bjarni Rúnar Einarsson]

The best way to do this would probably be:

 1. Create a new pagekite subdomain (something.flywith.pagekite.me)
 2. Create a CNAME linking your domain to something.flywith.pagekite.me (a TTL of 1D is probably fine)

The reason for creating a dedicated kite name for this, is that will allow you to run flywith.pagekite.me and the domain you are linking from separate machines if for some reason you want to do that in the future.

If you expect you may want to reconfigure this DNS name in the near future (or frequently) a lower TTL would make sense - 1H or even less.  The downside is that the lower the TTL, the less that name gets cached and the more frequently it has to be looked up, which slows down access to your site.

--
Bjarni R. Einarsson
The Beanstalks Project ehf.

Making personal web-pages fly: http://pagekite.net/

[Lane Lester]

2011/1/8 Bjarni Rúnar Einarsson <b...@pagekite.net>

The best way to do this would probably be:

 1. Create a new pagekite subdomain (something.flywith.pagekite.me)
 2. Create a CNAME linking your domain to something.flywith.pagekite.me (a TTL of 1D is probably fine)

Thanks, Bjarni! But I ran into something weird when I tried to follow your directions.

Step 1 above was no problem; it was Step 2 where I hit a snag.

I decided to use 10dollarwebsites.co.cc instead of tendollarwebsites(I have lots of domains). I already had that domain set at the registrar for URL Forwarding instead of the usual DNS values of my shared server.

When I clicked the Zone Records option, I saw that a record had already been created. Perhaps setting up the URL Forwarding did that. (Will Google Groups display an image added with Gmail? Here's a test:)


In case the image doesn't show up, the Host/TTL/Type/Value of the existing record was:
www.10dollarwebsites.co.cc/1H/CNAME/10dollarwebsites.co.cc

Using that as a model, what I filled in the fields for a new record was:
10dollarwebsites.flywith.pagekite.me/1H/CNAME/10dollarwebsites.co.cc

However, the registrar software automatically added to the Host: .10dollarwebsites.co.cc
This can be seen in the image above... if there is an image.
Even if I left the Value empty, the same thing got added to the Host.

Just in case this is a quirk of this registrar, I'm going to try your suggestion with best-from-the.net, a domain I have at a different registrar.

More later...

Lane

[LaneLester]

I sent a reply via Gmail, but I see it hasn't shown up in Google
Groups yet. I have some more to report on this project.

The CNAME seems to be active because when I visit http://www.10dollarwebsites.co.cc/
I get the PageKite "Temporarily Unavailable" message. This tells me
the problem is at my local machine, either in the pagekite.rc or the
lighttpd.conf.

My pagekite.rc backend definitions now show:
backend=http:10dollarwebsites.flywith.pagekite.me:localhost:
80:b44xdxecxd27badeb8869832kbkbe94a
backend=http:flywith.pagekite.me:localhost:
80:b44xdxecxd27badeb8869832kbkbe94a

I suspect my current holdup is in lighttpd.conf. I'm Googling around
and I picked up that for each additional domain you add this code:
$HTTP["host"] == "SITEURL" {
server.document.root = "/var/www/FOLDER/"
}

In my lighttpd.conf, I have:
$HTTP["host"] == "http://10dollarwebsites.flywith.pagekite.me/" {
server.document.root = "/mnt/storage/public_html/10dollarwebsites/"
}

I also tried for SITEURL: http://www.10dollarwebsites.co.cc/
but that didn't work, either.

I'm going to keep Googling for a while, because I really like the
simplicity and low overhead of lighttpd.

Lane

[Lane Lester]

On Sat, Jan 8, 2011 at 9:57 AM, Lane Lester <lane....@gmail.com> wrote:

Just in case this is a quirk of this registrar, I'm going to try your suggestion with best-from-the.net, a domain I have at a different registrar.

More later...

I looked at the situation at the other registrar, where it would be harder to do. But I picked up enough information to come up with this at the original registrar:

www.10dollarwebsites.co.cc

1 H

CNAME

10dollarwebsites.flywith.pagekite.me

This was accepted, so now we'll see if it works.

Lane

[Bjarni Rúnar Einarsson]

Hiya,

Sorry about the delay on these messages, they got caught in the Google group's moderation queue.

On Sat, Jan 8, 2011 at 3:55 PM, LaneLester <lane....@gmail.com> wrote:

I sent a reply via Gmail, but I see it hasn't shown up in Google
Groups yet. I have some more to report on this project.

The CNAME seems to be active because when I visit http://www.10dollarwebsites.co.cc/
I get the PageKite "Temporarily Unavailable" message. This tells me
the problem is at my local machine, either in the pagekite.rc or the
lighttpd.conf.

Actually, it's a bit of both. You haven't told pagekite (neither the service nor your pagekite.py instance) about the new domain name.

   1. log on to https://pagekite.net/home/
   2. Click "+ Add more"
   3. Select "I own a domain..."
   4. Fill out that form.
 

My pagekite.rc backend definitions now show:
backend=http:10dollarwebsites.flywith.pagekite.me:localhost:
80:b44xdxecxd27badeb8869832kbkbe94a
backend=http:flywith.pagekite.me:localhost:
80:b44xdxecxd27badeb8869832kbkbe94a

You need one more line:

  backend=http:www.10dollarwebsites.co.cc:localhost:80:SECRET

Also, you really shouldn't be sending your shared secret to a public mailing list, now anyone who reads this can hijack your domains and impersonate you... It's easy enough to change though, just use the /home/ page to set a new secret and then edit your config file to match.

[Lane Lester]

2011/1/11 Bjarni Rúnar Einarsson <b...@pagekite.net>

Actually, it's a bit of both. You haven't told pagekite (neither the service nor your pagekite.py instance) about the new domain name.

   1. log on to https://pagekite.net/home/
   2. Click "+ Add more"
   3. Select "I own a domain..."
   4. Fill out that form.

OK, I think I did it wrong, in that I didn't create a new pagekite subdomain before I registered my own domain. Here's the new situation which seems to look right:

Your pagekites		status	traffic
flywith.pagekite.me	go		182.2 kB
10dollarwebsites.flywith.pagekite.me	go		-
► www.10dollarwebsites.co.cc CNAME	go		-

I'm not sure if the graphics show above, but www.10dollarwebsites.co.cc is now shown as tied to 10dollarwebsites.flywith.pagekite.me.
 

You need one more line:

  backend=http:www.10dollarwebsites.co.cc:localhost:80:SECRET

It seems to be working somewhat. This is my new pagekite.rc (with the new SECRET... thanks for that warning):
httpd=localhost:9999
httppass=SECRET
frontends=1:frontends.b5p.us:443
dyndns=pagekite.net

backend=http:www.10dollarwebsites.co.cc:localhost:80:SECRET

backend=http:10dollarwebsites.flywith.pagekite.me:localhost:80:SECRET
backend=http:flywith.pagekite.me:localhost:80:SECRET

The good news is that a visitor to www.10dollarwebsites.co.cc is served the files from my local folder /mnt/storage/public_html/www.10dollarwebsites.co.cc/

The bad news is that my original pagekite subdomain flywith.pagekite.me serves the same files, instead of those in /mnt/storage/public_html/ as I originally had it. I feel pretty sure this is a problem with my lighttpd.conf file, so I'll do some experimenting with that.

The situation with lighttpd is that I'm now dealing with virtual hosting of multiple accounts, instead of the simple hosting of a single account. There are conflicting instructions online of the best and correct way to do virtual hosting with lighttpd.

I could, of course, switch to a better-documented and more popular package like apache, but I think it's more power and overhead than is needed in this situation. So if I can get lighttpd to do the trick, the solution might be useful to more than just myself.

Lane

[Bjarni Rúnar Einarsson]

Excellent, it looks like the Pagekite side of things is all sorted out for you now.

Good luck with lighttpd! The config can indeed be confusing at first, but I like it a lot.

[Lane Lester]

2011/1/11 Bjarni Rúnar Einarsson <b...@pagekite.net>

Excellent, it looks like the Pagekite side of things is all sorted out for you now.

Good luck with lighttpd! The config can indeed be confusing at first, but I like it a lot.

I think I have it! I have two separate domains set up serving their own files. The beauty of this setup is that I can add more domains without having to reconfigure or even restart lighttipd. All I have to do is create a new folder with the same name as the domain.

Here are my pagekites:

Your pagekites		status	traffic
flywith.pagekite.me	go		184.2 kB

10dollarwebsites.flywith.pagekite.me

go

-

► www.10dollarwebsites.co.cc CNAME

go

6.7 kB
tendollarwebsites.flywith.pagekite.me	go		-
► www.tendollarwebsites.co.cc CNAME	go		-

Here are my new pagekite.rc backend lines:
backend=http:www.tendollarwebsites.co.cc:localhost:80:SECRET
backend=http:tendollarwebsites.flywith.pagekite.me:localhost:80:SECRET

backend=http:www.10dollarwebsites.co.cc:localhost:80:SECRET
backend=http:10dollarwebsites.flywith.pagekite.me:localhost:80:SECRET
backend=http:flywith.pagekite.me:localhost:80:SECRET

I need to go work on something else now. Later on I'll write some generic instructions for setting this up.

Lane