14 Aug, 2007, Hades_Kane wrote in the 1st comment:
Votes: 0
Here's the thing…

For the last two years, a friend of mine has been hosting my game for free, although occasionally me or someone on my MUD would donate a month's worth of the server fee, even when he has insisted not to. This guy and I used to be pretty tight, but unfortunately he's come into some problems in his life and part of those is he had to get rid of his computer, which makes his time online extremely limited. The host computer that the server is located on suffered a brief power outage, and his limited time made him unable to get to his account to manually boot the server back up. After several days of this, I decided that the time had come for me to get my own account and host the MUD out of my pocket book. After several days of trying to contact him (with some contact being successful) but several days of him unable to boot the server back up or login and do other things I needed him to do, I was able to get the company owner to boot his server back up, and thus I was able to login and get the most recent copies of the files I need (namely area files, player files… my last manual update had unfortunately been about two weeks old).

Well, all of that is well and good, we got the MUD running and everything installed on the virtual server, but the problem I'm having is with our domain. I got an account and VPS with the same company that he had, because in two years, we've maybe had a total of two days downtime and he was always complimenting the guy on his customer service and everything, so I figured after two years of good service, why not? Well, this obviously creates a problem with the domain because the guy who was hosting the MUD still has my domain configured in his account, so that prevents me within my account from adding the domain there, with the 'eotmud.com is already in use' error coming up. Also, with us having our accounts at the same place, our name servers are the same, and with his account taking up my domain, I see no way out of this.

When I asked the company owner about booting up the other guy's server so we could get our most recent files, in regards to the domain thing, he told me to do my best to contact the guy because he couldn't change that without the account holder's authorization, and that even a phone call from him would work. I sent him an email and have been trying to catch him on AIM (he's been having his cell phone connected to his screen name), but several days have passed with absolutely no luck.

I'm doing my best to be patient, but especially with us not even being open yet and having a small playerbase, every bit of "down time" as it were that everyone trying to connect through the domain is seeing, the more and more people I fear we'll lose as they just decide that the MUD must have gone down permanently. I respect the guy's reluctance to mess with that guy's account without his authorization, but seeing as how the domain is in my name, seeing as how I own it, I would think I would have some entitlement to where that is configured, and maybe some course of action I can take other than sit around and hope this guy finds time to login and remove the domain from his account.

I'm doing my best to be patient, and I greatly appreciate everything he's done for us for the last two years. I'm just ready to be completely self-sufficient in regards to this stuff, and I'm getting really frustrated. I also don't want to come across like an ass to the guy, or to the company who has our server on it, waving "legalities" and what not…

Anyone have any suggestion as to what I might be able to do?
14 Aug, 2007, Muddy Lurker wrote in the 2nd comment:
Votes: 0
I'm glad to hear the mud didn't evaporate.
Though I can't help you with your problem, I can asure you that at least Grute will stay.

Just try and get rid of him.
14 Aug, 2007, Keberus wrote in the 3rd comment:
Votes: 0
Dunno if this will help, but maybe you should contact wildwestdomains. This is what I got when I did a whois eotmud.com

Domain Name: EOTMUD.COM
Registrar: WILD WEST DOMAINS, INC.
Whois Server: whois.wildwestdomains.com
Referral URL: http://www.wildwestdomains.com
Name Server: NS35.DOMAINCONTROL.COM
Name Server: NS36.DOMAINCONTROL.COM
Status: clientDeleteProhibited
Status: clientRenewProhibited
Status: clientTransferProhibited
Status: clientUpdateProhibited
Updated Date: 05-aug-2007
Creation Date: 20-dec-2005
Expiration Date: 20-dec-2007


Maybe they could help you, because the nameserver is what points to the right address anyways. Hope this helps a little.

Later,
KeB
15 Aug, 2007, Guest wrote in the 4th comment:
Votes: 0
Quote
but seeing as how the domain is in my name, seeing as how I own it, I would think I would have some entitlement to where that is configured


I think this right here is key to figuring this all out. Is the domain eotmud.com in your name? As in, you went and registered it with someone, paid for it, and manage the account on the registrar's server?

If this is the case, it's a simple thing to solve. You log in to your domain account and change the nameservers to point somewhere else. You'll need a DNS server willing to do this for you, which right now is being handled by the current mud host. But he has no legal control over where you tell it to resolve. It's quite possible wildwestdomains has a way to allow you to use theirs for the name resolution. All of the other places I've ever bought domains from do.

Once you have the DNS server assigned, you then need to tell it what IPs to resolve to. It won't matter what the current host's configuration is once he's no longer the recognized name server for it. With the possible exception of connections from the local machine, everyone on the internet would be directed to the new location.

You should have no trouble doing all of this without asking anything of the current host - but ONLY if the domain is actually yours.
15 Aug, 2007, Hades_Kane wrote in the 5th comment:
Votes: 0
Yeah, I registered it and paid for it, and it is in my name. So yeah, it is mine without any question.

The thing about the name servers is that right now, I have them pointing toward a 'parked' page just so people can see that the domain is still working.

The name servers I did have in there before on my friend's server was:

ns1.quantact.com
ns2.quantact.com

The problem I'm having is that the name servers provided for mine are the same… So are you saying that there is a way within my domain control that I can set those name servers, but have those direct toward the correct set of IP Addresses rather than the IP of his server?

The problem, as I see it, is that when I have it point at 'ns1.quantact.com' right now quantact.com is resolving the name server toward his IP, and I need it directing at mine… Obviously if I had it hosted on a different server, with different name servers, I might not be having this problem, but I'm looking for a solution that doesn't involve me needing to move servers again. I love where I'm at, minus this problem.
15 Aug, 2007, Guest wrote in the 6th comment:
Votes: 0
You don't need to move servers. You just need to change the name servers for your domain. On whatever DNS system that's at you should be able to tell it what IP the domain needs to resolve to. The IP does not have to be the same machine or even host as the name server.
15 Aug, 2007, Hades_Kane wrote in the 7th comment:
Votes: 0
Apparantly there's more to all of this than I'm aware of :p I'm at work right now, but when I get home I'll see if I can figure out how to do that.

My understanding of how that works has been that you set in your domain control panel the name servers, then you have the server that the domain is pointing toward configured to accept the domain as going toward that and the handling of what IP is directs to is done automatically through the server itself. In that way, five different domains could technically have 'ns1.quantact.com' but when a person attempts to access the domain, the host machine is contacted via the name servers and it acknowlegdes what domain is being pointed toward the machine, and based on what domains are configured on that, it knows which IP to direct the domain to. So, it's that understanding that has had me feeling stuck because if the host machine is configured to have the name servers provided to me point toward where the domain is configured on the server, then there's nothing I could do on that machine.

It's sounding like I have a significantly flawed understanding of how that works, which I hope I do :p The quicker I resolve this, the better. I appreciate everyone's advice, and I'll poke around my domain registrar thing more when I get home and see if I can't figure out how to do that.
15 Aug, 2007, Muddy Lurker wrote in the 8th comment:
Votes: 0
Well, I hope you can get this issue sorted out.

I have a sinking feeling that the Grute ate your mud. There's no telling what he's been up to while you were gone.

(even as empty as the place is, I haven't had so much fun just "playing" in a mud in a long time. And I've run through quite a list.)
15 Aug, 2007, Justice wrote in the 9th comment:
Votes: 0
DNS is pretty simple really. Basically a server is responsible for resolving the name to an IP address. All you're doing is telling it what server is responsible for your address. Of course there's a lot more to it, but for your issue, that's the gist of it.

What Samson is saying basically is that if you change what nameserver is responsible for your domain name, then you can point it to the proper IP address without needing to reconfigure the old nameserver. Which of course means you don't need to wait for your friend to find the time to handle it himself.
16 Aug, 2007, Hades_Kane wrote in the 10th comment:
Votes: 0
*Hugs Total DNS Control*

Thanks everyone, I got it working :biggrin:
16 Aug, 2007, Hades_Kane wrote in the 11th comment:
Votes: 0
and I just realized I posted this in the wrong section :p

My bad…
16 Aug, 2007, Davion wrote in the 12th comment:
Votes: 0
You did? :P
16 Aug, 2007, Hades_Kane wrote in the 13th comment:
Votes: 0
I thought I did… there's a 'website administration' section that I didn't….

Hey, someone moved it :p
0.0/13