Everything is a Funky DNS Problem

Tom dropped me a mail today letting me know that all the links to my RSS feed were broken.
I tested, and tested again and failed to reproduce the problem.

The only things I had changed recently where the administrator menu module and Pathauto module, apart from that I had not made any changes. So I tried uninstalling the modules to see if that helped, it didn't. There was no difference between the 2 setups.

When I replied to Tom that I couldn't reproduce the problemm he told me he only had the problem on http://krisbuytaert.be/ and not on http://www.krisbuytaert.be/

So I verified the apache vhost config and it turned out that the problem, as usual, was a frigging DNS problem.
Both Apache vhost config files had a different setup, so depending on how you arrived at this site you got a different config.

Annoying .. but I guess I owe Tom a beer for figuring this out and pointing me to my own DNS problem.

Comments

Bence's picture

#1 Bence : Problem again

http://krisbuytaert.be/ does not have CSS. Why not redirect http://krisbuytaert.be/ to http://www.krisbuytaert.be/ with .htaccess?


Kris Buytaert's picture

#2 Kris Buytaert : CSS ?

What CSS ?

There is absolutely no CSS on either http://krisbuytaert.be/ or http://wwww.krisbuytaert.be/ :)

It's meant to be that white :)


Bence's picture

#3 Bence : I see. But it's not a good

I see. But it's not a good thing if you don't redirect either example.com to www.example.com or vice versa.


Tom (sid3windr)'s picture

#4 Tom (sid3windr) : And why would this be not a

And why would this be not a good thing? They're 2 different urls, you could even put 2 totally different things on them (Kris did this unwillingly ;)


Nicholas Thompson's picture

#5 Nicholas Thompson : DNS?

Surely, if the problem was with your Apache config then the problem wasn't DNS? It was more Everything is a funky apache problem... ;-)


Kris Buytaert's picture

#6 Kris Buytaert : The Root Cause

If there were no differences in DNS setup , there were no differences between www.krisbutyaert.be and krisbuytaert.be
So if it wasn't for the difference in dns , there was no reason to have a vhost config that could be faulty.

So yes .. it was a frigging DNS problem.

It's not because the problem isn't at DNS level that the cause can't be.


Matt Casters's picture

#7 Matt Casters : Microsoft?

Microsoft is trying very hard to dilute the strong brand of open source by linking it to non-OSI approved licenses.
For example, they are attaching conditions like "needs to be compiled and run on Microsoft software" or "You agree to have your firstborn child work for us for 5 years without compensation". (only kidding ... about the compilation)

They were not the first to try this however. Many commercial organizations have added all kinds of clauses, the most popular being : "you can't use this software in a 'for profit' environment". Because of all these maneuvers, some people think that Open Source is the same as having your source code in the open. That is not the case. In the following slashdot link it's interesting to read the comments by Bruce Perens.

http://developers.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/10/04/1515244&from=rss

This one especially:

http://developers.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=985543&cid=25256541

There was no "open source", capitals or not, regarding software until the Open Source Definition. If you look through past material, you can only find a few uses of the words together regarding software at all, with no consistent meaning.

Open Source is what is defined by the Open Source Definition.

A number of microsoft dweebs and/or campaigners would like to have it otherwise. But then Microsoft would like to have a lot of things. It's called corporate totalitarianism.

Bruce

All this to say I completely agree with you Kris :-)

Take care,
Matt


Kris Buytaert's picture

#8 Kris Buytaert : Agree

thnx for agreeing with me..

to bad you commented to the wrong post ;)

greetz

Kris