

Suggest HN: Build a service to automatically setup CName or A-records  - petenixey

Every service which allows users to point a CName or A-record to their site (Tumblr, Weebly, UserVoice, Wordpress etc. etc.) requires people to go through the hairy process of changing DNS records with GoDaddy or whomever their domain provider is.<p>Doing this requires a huge amount of support time since the process inevitably fails and people need to email in for help. It's pretty miserable even if you know what you're doing.<p>It would be great if someone could do all of the wriggling and burrowing at the back using APIs where possible and scraping where not to create a service that does the switchover for you. Think Yodlee for DNS setup.<p>Make the service available for free via a brandable widget but sell (auto setup) domains through it as well. Offer a decent fraction of the domain sale to the hosting site.<p>Thoughts?
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alexchamberlain
I don't think this will work, as most registrars do not expose APIs onto their
DNS settings. Therefore, you would have to change your name servers to a DNS
provider which does provide such access anyway. If you do all this just to
insert a couple of A records, you might as well just change those records.
It's not that hard and registrars tend to have decent instructions.

See dnsimple.com for such a service. [not affiliated]

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gyardley
Relying on a scraper is a nasty way to do business. Registrars change their
admin interface all the time - your service will constantly be breaking, often
at inconvenient times. Rather bad for you if you've already taken someone's
money.

I could see putting a person or two in a call center in Manila, giving them
instructions on how to set CNAME records at the major registrars, and then
charging people a fixed fee for help with this stuff. To get leads, you could
offer the Tumblrs / Weeblys / etc. of the world a kickback to promote your
service in your admin interface, through a 'Get low-cost expert help with
this' link in their documentation.

After the call center's up and running, you can decide if you want to build
scrapers to make your call center even more efficient, although I doubt it'd
be worth the hassle.

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petenixey
the human option is a smart one - that said, regular tests could flag up a
failing service and one could switchover rapidly.

The service would definitely be brittle underneath which is why it would be
worth paying for.

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inopinatus
Commercial plug follows:

I am developing an agile DNS system incorporating some of these ideas right
now, although we are so stealthy today all you'll find online is a logo at
<http://www.qutonic.com/>

Including early support for cloudy apps like those listed but also Google
Apps, AWS, Heroku, Engine Yard and also doing some related things with crypto
and mail that IaaS and PaaS subscribers will find very useful.

First availability this month for beta customers. Follow us on twitter, id:
qutonic

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dholowiski
Google Apps does this a little bit... if you sign in with your Godaddy (I
know, sorry) account, they'll change your MX records for you.

I would really appreciate a service like this, not because it's hard to do but
because I do this very often... essentially when I register a domain name I
have a template of A, CNAME and MX records that I set up. It would be a great
time saver to do this with one click.

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jaredsohn
The registrar badger.com (fairly new; they offered $8 domains on Hacker News
last year although now they cost $10) has a concept called applications where
they present a nice UI for 11 sites (including tumblr, heroku, and google
docs). It makes DNS changes for you (and shows you what it will do beforehand)
and in some cases tells you what you need to do on that particular site.

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macca321
<http://iwantmyname.com/> ?

