First off, let me explain what I'm doing. I'm trying to build a website that replaces PokeVision, a service that connects to Pokémon Go servers and maps it.
Problem is, Niantic has blocked many popular hosting sites, including Heroku and Amazon. I use heroku.
Tldr; A server I'm trying to request and send data to is blocking my host, Heroku.
So... How would I pretend to be another domain? I'd say proxy but I'm not sure if that's the correct term in this case. Thank you so much!
Related
I'm having hard times trying to redirect a custom domain on Heroku, have you guys had the same problem?
Configured custom domain on Heroku (already tried different variation):
The server asks for Server Name, so I add the only thing Heroku returns as the DNS:
Below there are two domains, the first says "servfail" (the current app domain), the second "nxdomain", which I've just bought it's fine.
Any advices? Should I deploy on another server? Thanks for the help!
You need to update the DNS servers of your domain fariba.cl to fariba.cl.herokudns.com at the domain registrar's end (from where you purchased the domain)
After that it will work fine.
For those facing DNS redirecting problems in Heroku, I suggest this Add-on that you can add to your app in Heroku (for free): PointDNS
With it you can get many types of adresses, including IP and/or n1.server n2.server and so on, in which you can add the address to your domain settings.
I have recently installed PHP, MySQL Server, and Apache web server. I played around with some PHP scripts locally on the PC to insert some entries to MySQL Database.
Noob question so please be patient with me:
How do I get my web service out to the internet, by self hosting? Say I already have a domain for example mydomain.com How do I make it so that when someone not within my network can access mydomain.com/something and can send some data so my server gets it and do anything with that data?
Webhosting
You have to have some form of webhosting. You pay for hosting and you can upload your PHP files to their servers. They will usually also have database servers you can use.
Your domain name has to point to those servers via DNS so the internet can reach your application. I'd suggest you search the internet for popular hosts that provide the tools your need for this.
Self hosting
Another possibility is to open your network up to the world, but this is not recommended unless you have network administration experience due the security trouble that comes with it.
In short: forward a port through your router to the machine running your application. The website portforward.com has instructions on how to do this but keep in mind that misconfiguration could lead to vulnerabilities in your network.
In order to make you site public
1. you need host
2. you need domain
there are bunch of hosting sites you should get one first.
This link explains very well about self hosting
https://www.boutell.com/newfaq/creating/hostmyown.html
So, I've been reading quite some content about this. The latest one being here, and the heroku doc.
At the end, nobody answers the question clearly:
Is it possible to have http://nakeddomain.com aiming at a heroku app?
Here's what I know:
It is easy to redirect http://nakeddomain.com to http://www.nakeddomain.com to CNAME http://myapp.herokuapp.com : I don't want to do that
It is sometimes possible to ANAME (or ALIAS, or CNAME depending on the DNS provider vocabulary) apex name to another record. But in that case, all records are CNAMEd or ANAMEd (even the MX for mail delivery) which makes mail#nakeddomain.com unroutable as redirected to heroku app which certainly doesn't handle it by default.
So I'm going to reformulate
Is it possible to have http://nakeddomain.com aiming at a heroku app while using mails#nakeddomain.com?
How? Which services to use?
How much does it costs if there are extras to pay?
Should I stick on CNAMing apex name and move the mailer to another service (Google Apps, or Sendgrid as some suggest in Stackoverflow) or is it making it worse?
Subsidary questions:
Been reading Cloudflare is quite nice. How does it help me?
We are using 1and1 as a DNS provider currently? Does it make it easier/harder anyhow?
Been also reading DNSimple allows more features than other DNS providers. Which one?
Since we send automatic mails from our app, SPAM filtering is also a concern from mails#nakeddomain.com, if that has to do with the required configuration.
Thanks for support
Apex domains have no impact on using the naked domain for emails - completely different types of record. I have domains using DNSimple CNAMEs and the same domain for email. One is a cname, the other is an MX reocrd.
I would suggest using DNSimple or the cheaper option DNS made easy - both support ALIAS records, with the $30 a year plan you get 10 domains. I typically using one or the other and Google Apps for email which works just fine. For applications to send email I use Sendgrid.
CloudFlare is a caching layer. To use them you have to move your DNS to them.
You can use 1&1 as your registrar but you then use one of the previously mentioned to host the DNS - they have far superior services. Both provide CNAME but also redirection at DNS level so you can have www.domain.com redirected to domain.com at DNS level and not in your application. If you use Sendgrid for sending emails I'm sure they have a SPF record you can put on your domain to help keep emails out of spam folders.
EDIT:
Cloudflare seems to be the good solution for me: brings CDN and naked domain through changing DNS servers to their own and they have a free plan.
I'm going to answer point by point to explain what I've done:
Is it possible to have http://nakeddomain.com aiming at a heroku app while using mails#nakeddomain.com?
Yes
How? Which services to use?
Only using DNSimple or DNS made easy, as they handle ALIAS/ANAME records.
How much does it costs if there are extras to pay?
Cheapest is DNS made easy with $30/year
Should I stick on CNAMing apex name and move the mailer to another service (Google Apps, or Sendgrid as some suggest in Stackoverflow) or is it making it worse?
Haven't explored this option much, but if your domain provider has decent mail services, no reason to move out of it. It probably costs more money for this service...
Subsidary questions:
Been reading Cloudflare is quite nice. How does it help me?
Finally did not end up using it...
We are using 1and1 as a DNS provider currently? Does it make it easier/harder anyhow?
1and1 doesn't have ALIAS/ANAME records. So I had to use extra service (DNS made easy in my case), they give you a list of dns hosts that need to be replaced in the 1and1 interface and then it takes care of the rest.
Careful: For beginners reading this, updating these entries won't assign changes all over the web at once as DNS is based a lot on caching. You need to take this in account when doing changes, if you have production services. You could end up with weird behaviors between like infinite redirects, cdn not properly redirecting, or OAuth redirects broken for a while ...
Been also reading DNSimple allows more features than other DNS providers. Which one?
More customization is possible with DNS made easy. Interface will be more user-friendly also.
Eg. 301 redirects instead of 302 for 1and1, PTR records and other newest DNS records
Since we send automatic mails from our app, SPAM filtering is also a concern from mails#nakeddomain.com, if that has to do with the required configuration.
I read PTR records were good to prevent SPAM, but as far as I understood, it doesn't make sense when using heroku because the whole point of this record is to aim IP-Address to nakeddomain.com which is not possible as heroku doesn't provide fixed IP-addresses.
Hope it helps.
Heroku offers US and EU servers and I want my users to connect to the server which is closer to them, so if someone connects from the EU, I will redirect them to the EU server and the same for the US.
My idea was to have them connect to main domain name, example.com that would connect to the US server, which would check where the users are coming from, and then redirect them to where I want them to be, and all this while they are looking at the same domain "example.com". Heroku wont let me add the same domain twice, and I don't know where I should configure what for the DNS. My domain provider has a nameserver section and I'm not sure what to add there. Basically I want all the request and server load to go onto the Heroku page, and not onto the default DNS server which only redirects or loads the Heroku page inside a frame.
They way it seems correct, is to connect to example.com, which is the US Heroku page and then redirect inside a frame or something to the EU page... not sure if this is the best way, and like I mentioned, I'm not sure how to setup the namespace and stuff so they connect directly to the Heroku server instead of the default domain server.
Could someone explain to me what I need to do to achieve what I want?
It is currently not possible to run a multi-region application on Heroku and I'd caution against trying to work your way around this limitation. Some areas that cause users problems when trying to attempt this are:
You can't have the same custom domain on two apps (as you've already identified).
There is no way to setup a multi-master database configuration so each app has a db in its own region. Likewise, maintaining a single master for both apps results in very high latency for one of the apps.
The connection overhead of any other trickery, like what you propose here, often negates any latency improvement the user sees from accessing the app in their closest region.
Using a CDN for static assets, and having a proper http cache header strategy often gets you 90% of the way to the performance of a truly geo-distributed app.
To drill further into your question, I'm not sure what you mean here?
how to setup the namespace and stuff so they connect directly to the Heroku server instead of the default domain server
Hope that helps!
Say you have two apps hosted on heroku: appA and appB. They will be accessible at appA.herokuapp.com and appB.herokuapp.com. Is there a way to "share" the subdomains? As in, can I have appA listening on both urls?
I suppose I could have appB forward all its traffic to appA, but I'm more curious if it can be done through some heroku setting.
Thanks!
No, this cannot be done through a heroku setting. You either need one of the two apps acting as a reverse proxy to the other app, or else you need a third server running a dedicated reverse proxy such as nginx.
Heroku support once suggested using a third heroku app as an nginx reverse proxy with a custom buildpack to accomplish this, although I decided not to go that route. It is unfortunate that there is no systematic support for multiple apps on the same domain at Heroku, but that would add significant complexity to their currently predictable and transparent routing platform (which is itself a non-configurable reverse proxy).