How can I alias a subdomain to an external site using DNS?

Question

I have a site hosted on Linode. I use Linode's DNS (with Apache) for things like mail, blog.mysite.com-type subdomains, etc.

I want to use strikingly.com for my main page, hosted at www.mysite.com. Is there a way I can configure the DNS Manager (in Linode) to have www.mysite.com hosted at Strikingly while keeping mysite.com at Linode?

I tried adding a CNAME entry for the subdomain www with a target mysite.strikingly.com, but it doesn't seem to do anything at all (it serves my local apache on linode). But I don't really understand DNS details like CNAME...

Answer 1

I would use an A record in the DNS.

Say you have site linode.com at 10.0.0.1 and site strikingly.com at 10.0.0.3, the DNS entry would be something like that for www:

        A       10.0.0.1
www     A       10.0.0.3

Then on that server (10.0.0.3) you need to accept the www.mysite.com name in Apache. If that's the default website, then you're set. If that's just one of the websites, but not the default, make sure to have an entry such as:

<VirtualHost>
    # Handle www.mysite.com
    ServerName www.mysite.com
    ...
</VirtualHost>

With a CNAME, it will work too if you have a domain with the correct IP address. So say you define a sub domain strikingly.mysite.com and set that to the strikingly IP address:

strikingly   A     10.0.0.3
www          CNAME strikingly

The good thing with using a CNAME is that if the IP changes, you can change it in one location and all the other references get changed automatically. It's like having a DNS variable...