Clarification needed about hosting domain name

[drummerboy]

I have a client who has purchased a domain name ending with .com.madeup(not the usual .biz .com etc) The problem is, they're thinking of purchasing hosting services from me. Would they be able to host their domain name once they've purchased a hosting plan from me? I'm asking this is because they do not want to transfer their domain name to me as they want to have their domain name & hosting plans under separate registrars. How can this be done?


P.S. I think this should have been in the "Pre-sales section".

[Oliver]

As long as the customer can set our name servers to his domain name, he would be able to host it, no problem on our end.

[drummerboy]

Just for general knowledge, I wonder how this works. I mean, I'll have to suggest to my client to change the name servers for his domain name but how it works in the sense that when a person keys in the domain name, how would it automatically know that it would retrieve the pages from our servers?(Once the nameservers are changed that is). Just curious.

[rcj662]

It is just like changeing your home address. The domain name will be listed at the new server and anyone who clicks on the url will go to it.

[drummerboy]

Thanks for the explanation everyone. I've another question though. Once my client has purchased the webhosting service from me, can I tell my client to login to their control panel, choose the option to "host"(not transferring the domain name) their domain name through their control panel, and then only from there(our control panel), change their dnses? I was thinking if this way was possible because if I were to just tell my client to change their dnses from the domain name registrar without choosing to host their domain name in our control panel, they won't be able to add/use e-mails with regards to their domain name; e.g. email1@clientdomain.com.madeup Am I right?

[chaphosting]

your client would still be able to use emails and keep their domian name with their current registrar. Just get them to sort out their DNSs and it shud be fine.

If your client wants to change any other settings on their domain they would have to do it with their registrar.

[drummerboy]

That is if the other registrar(the one that controls their domain name) has a control panel as well that would allow my client to add e-mails according to their domain name. If not, I'll still have to get my client to "host" their domain in our control panel in order for them to add e-mails right?

[Milen]

Thanks for the explanation everyone. I've another question though. Once my client has purchased the webhosting service from me, can I tell my client to login to their control panel, choose the option to "host"(not transferring the domain name) their domain name through their control panel, and then only from there(our control panel), change their dnses? I was thinking if this way was possible because if I were to just tell my client to change their dnses from the domain name registrar without choosing to host their domain name in our control panel, they won't be able to add/use e-mails with regards to their domain name; e.g. email1@clientdomain.com.madeup Am I right?

Your client needs to both, if he wants to host his/her domain with us: change his/her domain name DNS settings with his/her current domain registrar and add the domain to the control panel of his/her web hosting account with us. It is not possible to change the DNS settings for domains that were not registered with us through our web hosting control panel.

That is if the other registrar(the one that controls their domain name) has a control panel as well that would allow my client to add e-mails according to their domain name. If not, I'll still have to get my client to "host" their domain in our control panel in order for them to add e-mails right?

I have not yet encountered a domain registrar that would not allow its clients to change the DNS settings of their domain in one way or another. Yet if your client's domain registrar does not offer such an option for some bizarre reason, your client will not bet able to host his/her domain with us.

[drummerboy]

Thanks for the explanation.

[bizzy]

Hi guys, first post so please forgive any uhmmm....

I also am a little confused on this point or issue of dns pointing.

scenario with questions:

"I have a registered domain [?????.com ]parked at a registra called lets say worldstate.com/
Worldstate.com has an account set up for me and I can access the DNS and change the DNS records at this worldstate.com
Currently ??????.com 's dns 1 an dns2 are pointed to worldstate.com

I decide to take on hostng with HHHHHH.com

I am informed that I need to change the DNS records to point to dns 1 and 2 = HHHHHH.com at my worldstate.com account.
I do this and now the dns records are ponting to my hosting account server.

But the question is:
How does the system know what pages to show from HHHHHHH and in fact what account to look in?

The hosting account at HHHHHHHH currently has no hosted domain of mine.

Do I just create a domain name folder that corresponds to the ?????.com / ?

Or do I host another domain of any label and somehow the dns will pick up it's folder?
What appears in the address bar of the browser? etc etc.
Maybe the best question is:
Can someone explain the difference if any betweeen hosting a domain name and transfering the domain name.? Can a domain name be hosted without transfering registra's?

Thanks in advance.

[Milen]

But the question is:
How does the system know what pages to show from HHHHHHH and in fact what account to look in?

When you enter a website into your browser, the browser first checks whether a corresponding IP address for the entered website is available in the local DNS cache of the computer (for example, if you have already accessed the web address in question a few minutes ago). If the IP is not available in the local DNS cache, the browser will request this IP from the DNS server of your Internet service provider. If the DNS server of your ISP has the necessary IP address (for instance if you have already visited this website a couple of hours ago), it will return it. If, however, the DNS server of your ISP does not have this data cached, it will query one of the root nameservers on the Internet. The root nameserver will return the IP of the nameserver handling the information for the top-level domain of the web address sought (the top-level domain name is the part of the web address after the last dot like .com, .net, .org, etc). The nameserver of the top-level domain name is queried in turn and returns the IP of the nameserver responsible for handling the website you want to visit (the DNS server responsible for this website). The DNS server responsible for the website you seek is queried and returns the IP of the website. Your browser than sends a request to the acquired IP and the webserver handling this IP address returns the website associated with this IP. The IP of the website you want to visit might not be unique as it is often the case with shared web hosting, however the webserver handling the IP also receives the name of the website and the database on the webserver contains information on what account is associated with the sought website and returns the requested webpage from the associated account.

Additional information on how the DNS system works is available on HowStuffWorks and in the Wikipedia.

Do I just create a domain name folder that corresponds to the ?????.com / ?
Or do I host another domain of any label and somehow the dns will pick up it's folder?
What appears in the address bar of the browser? etc etc.

In order for your webserver to know what account is associated with your domain, the database of the webserver must contain a record about it. This record is created when you add the domain through the Hosted Domains section of the web hosting control panel. Without such a record the webserver would not know what account is associated with your domain and even if you have set the respective DNS servers with your domain registrar, when your website is entered into a web browser, the webserver will return an error message, since it will not be able to find the relevant account from its database.

Maybe the best question is:
Can someone explain the difference if any betweeen hosting a domain name and transfering the domain name.? Can a domain name be hosted without transfering registra's?

Hosting a domain name means creating a database record on the server that will be handling this domain name (the DNS settings of the domain name must be changed accordingly with the current domain registrar for the domain name to work on the server where it is hosted). While transferring a domain name means changing the company/organization responsible for maintaining the registrant info and DNS settings data for the respective domain. Yes, certainly you can host a domain name without transferring it. To achieve this you need to do the two things that were already mentioned above - change the DNS settings for the domain with your current domain registrar and add the domain name to the Hosted Domain section of the web hosting control panel (or added the Use Existing tab of the Domain Manager tab of a reseller account, if you intend to use the domain name with a reseller account). Please, have in mind that it might take up to 72 hours for the updated DNS information to spread around the Internet after the DNS settings of a domain have been modified.

[bizzy]

Thanks Milen, you have been most helpful. I guess it is in the use of the word domain and what domain name actually means.
From outside the industry I would have thought the word domain meant an object of substance like a licence number or registration number of a car for example.
But in this case we have on one hand a domain parked at a registra [ item of substance] and we can simply host a surrogate domain name any where we choose to. How ever I would question the use of the same word to describe two very different things.
Possibly they should call the registra domain name as something like reg.domain or something that identifies this name as being special and of some significance.
This issue has caused all sorts of problems in the past for me and I am sure others as well. Mind you now that you have cleared this up it is no longer a concern of mine. Thanks.
[ maybe they could call surrogate domain names instead of ??????.com maybe ??????.serv to distinguish between the two at some stage in the distant future? ]