Question

Bad Request (Invalid Hostname) with www. in subdomain name

Asked by: BotBrain

We published a web address in a national magazine. The format we used is www.subdomain.domain.com. (Terrble idea I now know!)  The magazine is on the streets.

When we type this address into Firefox or Safari, we get the "Bad Request (Invalid Hostname)" error. With Explorer we get "The webpage cannot be found" HTTP400. Nobody can get to our website from the ad!

My questions:
1. Where is this error being generated? Why?  
2. Can I fix it by adding an A Record or a CNAME of "www.subdomin"?

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Asked On
2009-09-29 at 18:25:06ID24772176
Tags

IIS 6.0 Windows shared hosting on GoDaddy

Topics

Server Applications

,

Microsoft IIS Web Server

,

Web Hosting

Participating Experts
2
Points
500
Comments
17

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Answers

 

by: The_Computer_GuyPosted on 2009-09-29 at 18:36:54ID: 25454951

What is the actual address?

 

by: The_Computer_GuyPosted on 2009-09-29 at 18:39:55ID: 25454973

Please see this article regarding editing your CNAME record:

http://blog.rafaelsosa.com/2007/05/02/www-on-subdomains/

 

by: nishitcruisePosted on 2009-09-29 at 20:58:26ID: 25455541

Yes you need to add a CNAME record which points to www.subdomain

Let me know if you need more help.

 

by: BotBrainPosted on 2009-09-30 at 06:50:18ID: 25458798

Replying to The Comuter Guy:  the actual address is www.servo.botbrain.com

 

by: BotBrainPosted on 2009-09-30 at 07:06:09ID: 25458963

Replying to nishitcruise:  GoDaddy had me add a CNAME which points to just the subdomain.domain.com.  On the actual site, there is a CNAME of www.servo and it points to servo.botbrain.com.  It has been in place for about 30 hours (9PM EDT Tuesday night).  I am assuming that is enough time for it to propagate, but I am still getting the error.

 

by: BotBrainPosted on 2009-09-30 at 07:09:28ID: 25458995

Replying to The Computer Guy:

Thank you.  I read the article.  If I read it correctly, Rafael suggests the exact solution that GoDaddy had me do.  But 30 hours later I am still getting the "Invalid HostName" message

 

by: The_Computer_GuyPosted on 2009-09-30 at 09:29:30ID: 25460563

When I ping www.servo.botbrain.com I receive replies from IP 68.178.232.72

However, when I browse directly to the IP address in firefox, I get an invalid host name error as well.

Does that IP address look familiar to you?

 

by: BotBrainPosted on 2009-09-30 at 11:45:55ID: 25461987

Responding to The Computer Guy:

68.178.232.72 is the IP address for @, and all three subdomains (including servo).

 

by: The_Computer_GuyPosted on 2009-09-30 at 12:02:57ID: 25462157

In the file /home/httpd/vhosts/domain.com/subdomains/subdomain/conf/vhost.conf put 'ServerAlias www.subdomain.domain.com' and then run /usr/local/psa/admin/bin/websrvmng -v -a

 

by: The_Computer_GuyPosted on 2009-09-30 at 12:07:08ID: 25462207

Maybe you can make a sub sub domain as www and put a redirect page there.

 

by: nishitcruisePosted on 2009-09-30 at 12:58:02ID: 25462762

HOST      TYPE      PRI      TARGET      CLASS      TTL
botbrain.com      A                  IN      3600
botbrain.com      NS            ns26.domaincontrol.com      IN      3600
botbrain.com      NS            ns25.domaincontrol.com      IN      3600
botbrain.com      SOA                  IN      86400
botbrain.com      MX      0      smtp.secureserver.net      IN      3600
botbrain.com      MX      10      mailstore1.secureserver.net      IN      3600


No CNAME record found please contact your hosting provider for this.

 

by: nishitcruisePosted on 2009-09-30 at 13:08:39ID: 25462905

Sorry for my last comment, i got the CNAME records

www.servo.botbrain.com      CNAME            servo.botbrain.com      IN      3600



i think you should check below post

http://www.webproworld.com/discussion-forum/72487-cannot-access-www-subdomain.html


and hope thirdparty dns solution will work for you.

 

by: BotBrainPosted on 2009-09-30 at 19:38:33ID: 25465621

Responding to nishitcruise and The Computer Guy.  Thank you.  My schedule is crazy and will not permit me to do anything more until tomorrow evening.

 

by: BotBrainPosted on 2009-10-01 at 12:30:27ID: 25472325

Responding to The Computer Guy:

"In the file /home/httpd/vhosts/domain.com/subdomains/subdomain/conf/vhost.conf put 'ServerAlias www.subdomain.domain.com' and then run /usr/local/psa/admin/bin/websrvmng -v -a"

I would be happy to do this but am totally lost about how.  Can GoDaddy support people help? i didn't know I had a file named like that.

 

by: The_Computer_GuyPosted on 2009-10-01 at 16:21:14ID: 25474082

Actually, I am not sure how your site is hosted, so I may be way out of line here... I am assuming GoDaddy would have to make that change and run the command for you.

 

by: BotBrainPosted on 2009-10-02 at 06:41:01ID: 25477739

Responding to nishitcruise: I went to that posting & found someone saying that this just plain would not work with GoDaddy's hosting, but that it would work with cPanel.  I researched cPanel and found that GoDaddy offers it with dedicated servers (much more costly than our shared Windows server.  So I called GoDaddy Tech support and asked about this.  I did not get an actual answer: the tech was not trained in this stuff.  But he referred me to Advanced Tech Support.
   Advanced has emailed me and advised me that I need to add an A Record, that the CNAME will not work.  So I will make that change this morning and suppose I must wait 48 hours to be sure it does not work (last time we used A Record change we only waited 24 hours before giving up.
   48 hours expires Sunday morning.  I will keep you informed.
Thanks,

 

by: BotBrainPosted on 2009-10-05 at 10:58:32ID: 31635165

This response put me on a path to the solution.  I did more online research and found that cPanel was offered by GoDaddy and therefore the solution might lie there. Bolstered by this confidence, I started pushing back hard at their tech support people and finally got kicked upstairs to the advanced support department.  After three more rounds of email I reached a very helpful tech on Monday morning (don't bother evenings & weekends, second string is working).  He appears to have added two additional A Records (there are now three) and they are all pointing to a new numeric address, which I assume is my subdomain. My original A Record had bee pointing to the numeric address of the domain itself.

20120131-EE-VQP-002

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