Pointing a domain to AWS Route 53

Question

I am having difficulties getting my domain to point to my EC2 properly. I searched through a few third party guides online, and got slightly swamped in the official AWS documentation, but despite this I still cant get it to work.

Ive have Route 53 set up like this:

Type:  A
Value: ??.??.??.?? (IP address)

Type:  NS
Value: ns-1403.awsdns-47.org. 
       ns-1696.awsdns-20.co.uk. 
       ns-632.awsdns-15.net. 
       ns-431.awsdns-53.com.

Type:  SOA
Value: ns-431.awsdns-53.com. 
       awsdns-hostmaster.amazon.com

And on my domain host I have the DNS Records set up like this:

Hostname: www
Type:     NS
Value:    ns-1403.awsdns-47.org
          ns-1696.awsdns-20.co.uk
          ns-632.awsdns-15.net
          ns-431.awsdns-53.com

I think I am doing something fundamentally wrong. Firstly Im not sure if I got the Hostname part right on my DNS records. On the site it says .domain after the input box for the Hostname, which makes me think its a sub domain specifier. Am I right in thinking the @ symbol works for no subdomain? (i.e. domain.com instead of www.domain.com)

Secondly should I remove the NS record set from Route 53, as its already specified in the DNS Records on the domain host?

Many thanks

Solution 1

It appears to me that right now you are looking at zone editors of two different dns service providers.

What you'll want to do is decide which dns service you want to use (Route53?) and then make sure that the domain is delegated to the nameservers specified by this service provider.

Delegation is managed through your domain registrar, the exact wording differs between registrars but something like "change nameservers", "custom nameservers", "domain delegation" are fairly typical examples.

(If the registrar provides additional dns services in addition to their role as a registrar this can sometimes cause confusion but these are separate things both conceptually and normally also in how they is presented.)

Solution 2

Here is a simple process to get from registering a new domain to having browser requests arrive at the web server. Yes it could be made more fancy, but the focus is on simple in order to clear away the common confusion about different roles of the registrar and Route 53.

1. In AWS Route 53, create a new hosted zone with same name as the domain you registered, mydomain.com. After it creates the new hosted zone, Route 53 will tell you the names of 4 name servers to delegate your domain to. Example:

   ns-1403.awsdns-47.org. 
   ns-1696.awsdns-20.co.uk. 
   ns-632.awsdns-15.net. 
   ns-431.awsdns-53.com.
   

2. At your domain host (registrar), register your domain. Eg mydomain.com. When they ask which name servers you want you set (delegate) for your new domain, provide the same 4 values from above starting with 'ns-'.

3. Back in Route 53, under the new hosted zone for mydomain.com, you'll see Route 53 has already automatically created the correct dns record sets for type NS and SOA for you. Don't touch these. What you want to do is add new DNS record sets alongside these with type A or CNAME.
   Create an A record your domain apex. In the Route 53 console, click into your new hosted zone mydomain.com then "Create Record Set".

   Name:   <blank>
   Type:   A
   Alias:  No
   TTL:    900 (anything from 60s to 3600s would be reasonable)
   Value:  65.254.242.180 (the public IP address of your webserver/load balancer)
   Routing Policy: Simple
   

   Create a CNAME record set for the www. to pointing to the apex domain.

   Name:   www
   Type:   CNAME
   Alias:  No
   TTL:    900 (anything from 60s to 3600s would be reasonable)
   Value:  mydomain.com
   Routing Policy: Simple
   

4. Use an independent online DNS checking tool to check that your new DNS records are visible in the public DNS. Might have to wait a few minutes. Example http://www.dnswatch.info/dns/dnslookup?la=en&host=www.mydomain.com&type=A&submit=Resolve

Comments

[Jimmery]

Yeah, the 'Delegation', or 'Custom Nameservers' as my domain host calls them, is the information I showed in the second part my question - Im trying to forward that domain onto the Route 53 nameservers. To my understanding, Route 53 doesnt host the actual domains themselves, you can only configure nameservers. So I use my domain host to hold the domain and then tell it to use Route 53's nameservers. Am I right in thinking this? Should I delete the NS record set on Route 53? Is this what you are suggesting I do?

[Håkan Lindqvist]

@Jimmery What I'm suggesting is that if you want to use the Route 53 services you should leave the NS records in the zone you have created at Route 53 intact and change the delegation to match. As for whether Route 53 "host the actual domains themselves" that will depend on what you mean by that; they certainly do in terms of DNS.

[Jimmery]

If I understand correctly you cannot host a domain on Route 53, you can only use their name servers to manage the domain. They do indeed do DNS, but this simply controls domains hosted elsewhere. The NS records in my delegation match the records in Route 53? But still no joy. Am I right in putting "www" into the "Hostname"?