How to use SRV (or any other) record do redirect a domain?

Question

So:

• i have a domain example.com

• i have a microsoft azure project at example.cloudapp.net

• i used a CNAME record to make www.example.com work with example.cloudapp.net.

now the problem:

• the domain without the www. part does not work!

• i don't have any options to redirect it in my domain provider account. I can only set: A, MX, CNAME, TXT, AAAA or SRV records.

  • The CNAME and A don't work. I've try CNAME but it dosen't work for example.com. For the A record you have to provide a IP, which is also not very smart for a azure account.

The only record i can imagine to accomplish this is the SRV, but i don't know how to use it properly. Any help or suggestions?

with best regards,

cris

Answer 1

This is more DNS managing question then Azure question.

You can certainly use A record with your Azure deployment. It was at least 6 months back in time (if not longer) when MSFT announced the persistence feature of a VIP (Virtual IP Address). Which means that your deployment (once deployed!) will have 1, non-changing public IP address as long as you do not delete the deployment! That VIP will be persisted across upgrades.

You can find out more about managing deployments here. And here there is a full section "Persitence of VIP", where it is explained how your VIP address is persisted.

So, just A record to your VIP address, and it will work as long as you do not delete the deployment. Who needs to access a deleted deployment anyway. Just try to not forget to update the A record when you create new deployment in case you deleted old one.

UPDATE **

I just made couple of checks and I think it's worth trying following SVR record:

_http._tcp 21600 IN SRV 10 10 80 yourservice.cloudapp.net.

Note the dot at the end, it is essential and important!

(I will try it myself as soon as I can - it is definitelly worth exploring this)

UPDATE 2 **

Interesting observation. I made one such record for one of mine domains. However the result is plain redirect to http://yourservice.cloudapp.net/ and not staing on http://mydomain.com/. So the result is - SRV cannot be used. Just use A record to point to your VIP.