Is there anyway we can park domains (not point domains) in DA?

[greentea]

Hi,

Is there anyway we can park domains (not point domains) in DA?

Thank you in advance.

 

[jmstacey]

Give these a try:
http://www.directadmin.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=2113&highlight=park+domains
http://www.directadmin.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=7319&highlight=park+domains

Doesn't appear as if DirectAdmin has this capability at this time, however there are possible workarounds.

 

[nobaloney]

John recommends the same method I've been using forever.

We set up one IP# for a "freeparking site"; we call it "freeparking.example.com" (obviously with the real domain name).

Then we just use DNS to point all freeparked sites to that IP#, and they'll all see that page.

Jeff

 

[greentea]

Thanks so much, Jeff!

After reading so much stuff on using DNS to do the domain parking everywhere on the Internet, your answer suddenly enlightened us on exactly how to do it and now it's working!

A few more questions. If our primary IP#, say 1.2.3.4, is the IP of our nameserver, say ns1.server.com, can we also use 1.2.3.4 to host a virtual domain, say vdomain.com, and then park several other domains to vdomain.com? Would it still work if 1.2.3.4 hosts more than one virtual domain?

Can we also redirect all traffic to vdomain.com to another website, which sits on another IP#, say 5.6.7.8? How would this affect the DNS functioning?

Thank you in advance.

 

[nobaloney]

Don't count on it working unless the IP# is dedicated to the freeparking site.

Here's why:

When a request comes in on an IP# to display pages for a site that doesn't have it's own "container" in httpd.conf (or one of the include files), apache will display the default index page for the first site to use the IP# (that's the first site in the order in which it finds it in httpd.conf).

And that can easily change outside of your control.

So we use a dedicated IP#.

Jeff

 

[greentea]

Thanks again, Jeff!

One more question. How do we disable the email functions for a freeparking site and all the freeparked sites? E.g. freeparking.example.com is the freeparking site and abc.com is the freeparked site that points to the same IP # as freeparking.example.com. We don't want to send or receive email at both freeparking.example.com and abc.com. We also want to prevent spammers from using mail.freeparking.example.com and mail.abc.com to send their spam email, and / or sending their spam email with email addresses ending with freeparking.example.com and abc.com.

Thank you in advance.

 

[nobaloney]

Onno gave some good advice in a different post about using a custom skin to avoid email settings.

However in the context of a free-parking site, I don't see any problems; you're not giving out any password information so there's no way the user can know about the email or get to it.

What scenario are you looking at?

Jeff

 

[greentea]

We don't want to send or receive email at both freeparking.example.com and abc.com. For example, if someone were to send an email to [email protected] or [email protected] we want DA and / or our email server to recognise that as a spam attack and block further connections from that sender in the same (5-minute) period.

We also want to prevent spammers from using mail.freeparking.example.com and mail.abc.com to send their spam email. For example, if DA and / or our email server detects such attempts, we want them to recognise that as a network attack and block further connections from that sender in the same (5-minute) period.

We also want to prevent spammers from sending their spam email with email addresses ending with freeparking.example.com and abc.com, if this is possible.

So how can we achieve all the above?

Thank you in advance.

 

[nobaloney]

We don't want to send or receive email at both freeparking.example.com and abc.com.

You won't be. By default exim doesn't send email to anyone who doesn't authenticate, and no one can authenticate as a user of either freeparking.exmaple.com, or abc.example.com, if you don't give them an email address there.

For example, if someone were to send an email to [email protected] or [email protected] we want DA and / or our email server to recognise that as a spam attack and block further connections from that sender in the same (5-minute) period.

Set up exim.conf to send such emails to a program you write, which will log them to a log file you create. Install APF (Advanced Policy Firewall) and set it up to watch that log file, and upon the first post to it, block the sending IP#. Personally, I think this is overkill; it's probably a greater server load then just blocking them.

The following works effectively but breaks a lot of RFCs and could conceivably get a lot of people mad at you: just create the mx records for these domains to something like null.example.com (your domain name there), and create an A record in the example.com zone pointing null.example.com to 127.0.0.1.

Very effective; anyone spamming you will be spamming their own box.

However it will eventually get you in trouble. Here's why:

You're presuming that all domains you're freeparking will have never existed before and therefore not have legitimate reasons to get email. That's just not a reasonable presumption. The first time a legitimate AOL user sends an email to a previously legitimate address at a domain now pointing to you, and their server gets blocked, AOL will block your server.

And they're not the only ones.

Frankly, I'd probably do it as well.

Try to be a good neighbor.

We also want to prevent spammers from using mail.freeparking.example.com and mail.abc.com to send their spam email. For example, if DA and / or our email server detects such attempts, we want them to recognise that as a network attack and block further connections from that sender in the same (5-minute) period.

Don't set up the mail subdomain for these domains. But don't expect it to matter; most spammers looking for open relays (and not too many do that any more) look by IP#. You'd do better by using your firewall to block port 25 for the IP# you've used for the freeparking site.

We also want to prevent spammers from sending their spam email with email addresses ending with freeparking.example.com and abc.com, if this is possible.

Actually, this is the easiest one of all.

Sit on them, so they can't reach their keyboards.

Of course to do that you have to find them.



Jeff

 

[greentea]

You'd do better by using your firewall to block port 25 for the IP# you've used for the freeparking site.

Actually, this is the easiest one of all.

Sit on them, so they can't reach their keyboards.

Thanks Jeff.

If we can, we would rather remove their keyboards.

Actually, the ISPs should be the ones to monitor their subscribers and take actions against spammers without the rest of us having to put up with the spam.

But anyway, we are very interested in your suggestion on blocking port 25 for the IP# that we use for the freeparking site. Is it possible to do so via DA? If not, do you know how to configure it in FreeBSD? We are not very techie, so would appreciate any help you can offer.

Thank you in advance.

 

[nobaloney]

DA does not include a firewall, or firewall management.

You can (and should) install a firewall for your OS distribution, and that's where you'd manage your firewalling.

There have been some discussions on these forums for managing a firewall for FreeBSD; the forum search is your friend .

Jeff