Why is www.cpdl.org domain unreachable?

[acole]

I've been having problems reaching CPDL for about 6 months now. When trying to browse http://www.cpdl.org I get either an endless redirect loop, or shunted to test.cpdl.org which is not up to date. I eventually discovered the mirror server at www1.cpdl.org, which I now see is up to date and has a forum in current use (ie., this one).

So, what's the deal with the main wiki site? Am I the only one having such access problems?

confused...
Adam Cole

[choralia]

It seems you have a DNS problem. Your DNS is probably resolving www.cpdl.org with the IP address of the old server used until September 2008. Please check your DNS settings: http://www.cpdl.org should be resolved to IP address 74.54.72.246, that is the current main operational server.

Max

[acole]

Well, you've led me a merry chase. It seems you were right about my ISP's dns problem...
C:\>nslookup http://www.cpdl.org
Server: ns1.sonic.net [208.201.224.11]
Name: cpdl.org
Address: 171.67.229.80 (wrong!)
Aliases: http://www.cpdl.org

...but browsing the IP address you gave me just led to an Apache server placeholder page:
C:\>nslookup 74.54.72.246
Server: ns1.sonic.net [208.201.224.11]
Name: ns2.bitpiston.com
Address: 74.54.72.246

I couldn't figure what a bitpiston.com nameserver and the CPDL site would have in common. Then I tried:
C:\>nslookup http://www.cpdl.org 208.67.222.222
Server: resolver1.opendns.com [208.67.222.222]
Name: http://www.cpdl.org
Address: 74.54.72.146

OK, so you meant 146, not 246. Normally I wouldn't post all this in response to a mere typo, except that the "correct" IP address doesn't appear to work either. Browsing http://74.54.72.146 (gator575.hostgator.com) directly gives me a blank page with an iframe referral to http://searchportal.information.com (which is currently unreachable but sounds like a domain-squatter site if I've ever heard of one). Any attempt at browsing a subdirectory hierarchy analogous to that found on the www1 mirror server (.../wiki/index.php/Main_Page, e.g.) only gives me a hostgator 404 error page. So I'm stumped again.

I'm not sure why this should be causing me such difficulty... but could someone please give me a dotted-quad URL that points to a working, non-mirror CPDL main page? I'm starting to believe it doesn't really exist!

[choralia]

We receive an average of 200 thousand page visits per day at http://www.cpdl.org.

You have to set your DNS so that http://www.cpdl.org is resolved as 74.54.72.146 (sorry, I mistyped the last section). As this server is shared with other websites, you cannot just enter the IP address (e.g. http://74.54.72.146), because, by doing so, you browser does not specify that it is looking for http://www.cpdl.org rather than any of the other websites hosted on the same server. You have to reach 74.54.72.146 and your browser must specify that you are looking for http://www.cpdl.org.

The following URLs:

http://www.cpdl.org
http://www.choralwiki.org
http://www.choralwiki.net
http://cpdl.org
http://choralwiki.org
http://choralwiki.net

are all equivalent to http://www.cpdl.org, but I guess that you will not be able to reach any of them if you don't set your DNS properly.

Max

[acole]

Ah. I didn't recognize the need to specify both pieces of information.

I have my DNS assigned dynamically thru my dsl router via DHCP, which means I use my ISP's nameservers. Sonic.net is a competent and well-respected ISP, but it does seem beyond question that their cached entry for CPDL is badly out of date. I've just mentioned it to them & will be interested to hear the explanation.

I suppose I could switch to OpenDNS, but for now, I've made it work by hard-coding http://www.cpdl.org to the correct IP address in my local HOSTS file. That lets me pass both the correct IP and the site name to the server.

I appreciate the quick response, which now has me back up and able to submit scores. And FWIW, I know CPDL gets a ton of traffic; I was just joking about the 'I-doubt-ur-existence' bit

[acole]

The answer to this riddle is that my ISP (sonic.net) isn't just any random provider where CPDL is concerned: Sonic just happens to be the ISP with whom Mr. Ornes originally registered the CPDL domain!

After a bit of back and forth, my tech support guy found that this old domain registration--which I expect would have been 'authoritative' in DNS parlance--was never properly canceled when y'all set up the new CPDL server. So the rest of the world's nameservers quickly adopted the new authoritative mapping, but anyone like me who used or deferred to sonic.net's DNS got shut out.

I'm happy to be able to report that the old entry has been deleted, and the address lookup should now be correct for many Northern California users who were having this difficulty.

[choralia]

my tech support guy found that this old domain registration--which I expect would have been 'authoritative' in DNS parlance--was never properly canceled when y'all set up the new CPDL server

The procedure to move the "authoritative" DNS from sonic.net to another provider was carried out at the end of December 2008 (see http://www.cpdl.org/wiki/index.php/Chor ... ss_at_CPDL). This procedure was performed through the registrar of cpdl.org, Network Solutions, as the registrar is the entity where the "authoritative" DNS is defined. The procedure worked fine, and, within few hours, all the DNSs around the world were able to resolve cpdl.org with the IP address of the new server. Apparently, something didn't work specifically at sonic.net, i.e., their DNS system didn't read the new DNS information provided by Network Solutions, so the updated IP address was not available, but only at sonic.net. Maybe their DNS system didn't want to give up its "authoritative" status . Thank you for pointing it out, so that sonic.net could correct this problem for the benefit of all CPDL users having sonic.net as ISP.

Max