How to use your personal domain with .Mac/iWeb 08
Since the release of iWeb 08 a few days ago, the minds of .Mac users have been all aflutter wondering how to use their personal domains with their accounts. What follows is one mans search for the truth and the answers he found.
In my quest to throw my personal site, scottmcdaniel.org onto .Mac, here’s what I had to do (note – I’m still working on it, sheesssshhhh!).
Note: these settings are for Dreamhost web hosting. Your hosts settings should be somewhat similar. Worst case scenario, email them and ask them to ‘change your www cname to web.mac.com’.
To begin, you must first tell .Mac to use your personal domain. To do so, go to your account page, then click ‘Use personal domain’. Enter your domain name into the form, then proceed to telling your domain where to go!
Note: These instructions are for Dreamhost users. Your mileage may vary!
First, log into your control panel and go to ‘Domains’.
Next, locate your domain and look to the right. You should see something like this:
Click ‘Delete’. Note: This will NOT delete your files/databases from Dreamhost. They will still be accessible via ftp/ssh.
Once the page refreshes and you’ve been told your hosting has been deleted, go back to the main domain page, then click ‘DNS’ under your domain name:
Enter the following information:
Name: www
Type: CNAME
Value: web.mac.com
Comment: None necessary, but you may want to remind yourself what the point was…
Click ‘Add record now’. Now we want to add another record the same way, except for name, use ‘*’. Yes, simply use an asterisk. What this does is to tell the server to send requests for non-www pages to the same place. This will allow your site to be accessed using www and without.
Note: Don’t edit any other settings, or you could mess up your email or any databases you have on your site!
Within a few minutes you should be able to type in your domain name and pull up your .Mac/iWeb created sites, blogs and galleries.
Hope this helps someone out there, and if you have any details on other hosts or registrars, please feel free to comment!
