DNS for Pages domains

I was trying to set up GL Pages again for https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ce/issues/47585 and https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ee/issues/302#note_79893273, as part of the meta issue https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ce/issues/39978, but I'm having some issues here.

1. We say in the docs that I should use an A record for a root domain:

   

2. When we add a new root domain to GitLab Pages, the UI says I should use a CNAME record (not an A record):

   

3. When I add an A record poiting marcia.ml to 52.167.214.135, I see this error:

   

4. When I change that to CNAME, it does work, but CloudFlare gives me an alert:

5. When I change it back to an A record instead of the CNAME apex, it keeps working

6. Then, I want to redirect www.marcia.ml to marcia.ml. When I add a CNAME record to point www to the root domain, it does work out-of-the-blue, there's no need to set up anything in GitLab:

   

7. Then I want to do the same thing again, redirect hello.marcia.ml to marcia.ml. But, when I add another CNAME record poiting hello to the root domain, it does not work as the previous one:

   

   

8. I tried to add hello.domain.com to my Pages settings, and I verified it with the TXT record, and it still doesn't work, but GL Pages says it should be working:

   

9. Then the UI says I should use a CNAME from hello.marcia.ml to marcia.gitlab.io, and when I do that in Cloudflare, nothing changes, I get the same error "This site can’t be reached - hello.marcia.ml’s server IP address could not be found. - DNS_PROBE_FINISHED_NXDOMAIN":

   

10. UPDATE: Okay, https://hello.marcia.ml is working now, so prob was a matter of DNS propagation.

11. UPDATE (1): As hello is working now, I added another domain (hello-world.marcia.ml) as I did for www, using just a CNAME to marcia.ml. Not working, waiting a while to see if the DNS propagates.

Testing environment:

• Testing project: https://gitlab.com/marcia/marcia.gitlab.io
• Cloudflare
• Testing domain: marcia.ml
• Testing subdomains: https://www.marcia.ml, https://hello.marcia.ml, and https://hello-world.marcia.ml
• Final config after item 11 above (TXT for marcia.ml and hello.marcia.ml):

Questions

1. What should we do about the A record (item 1 above)? Fix the docs or fix GitLab? I mean, the apex domain thing is not widely supported, is it?
2. Do we still support multiple subdomains for the same website? If so, what should I do to make www.marcia.ml and hello.marcia.ml work?
3. Why does www work without the TXT record?

cc/ @nick.thomas @bikebilly @axil

changed the description

changed the description

mentioned in issue #39978 (closed)

changed the description

Hmm, I only know that you should use an A record if the domain is also used for email, otherwise your email will not work.

It might be simplest to just remove any reference to CNAMEs at all? The A record approach works in all cases; the only benefit to CNAMEs is that no action is required when the IP changes.

We could also consider including OAuth integration against major DNS providers so that we can set up the required DNS records on behalf of a user. Google provides this functionality, for instance, and it would allow us to automate an error-prone step.

Why does www work without the TXT record?

This should be a bug if it happens. www is considered another domain name so validation is needed.

What should we do about the A record (item 1 above)? Fix the docs or fix GitLab? I mean, the apex domain thing is not widely supported, is it?

Fix in both as Nick wrote above and mention the A record only.

removed milestone

Thanks @nick.thomas and @axil!

Ok, I understand. But does GitLab Pages "know" if it's a subdomain or a root domain?

Ideally, we should create a logic that does like:

• If sub.domain.com => CNAME to namespace.gitlab.io
• If domain.com => A to 52.167.214.135

I'm looking at the code but I don't see an option for it:

%pre
  #{@domain.domain} CNAME #{@domain.project.pages_subdomain}.#{Settings.pages.host}.

---

This should be a bug if it happens. www is considered another domain name so validation is needed.

Hm. Funny. It does happen. Beyond that, it works exactly as I expected: if I visit https://www.marcia.ml, it redirects to https://marcia.ml. But, if I visit hello.marcia.ml it does not redirect to https://marcia.ml, it only shows the same site, even if a add a CNAME from hello to marcia.ml. This is bad UX I think. If I have a website, I probably want only one working URL, despite the redirects.

I think we need to keep this bug then

I used this tool to analyse the redirects:

• 1. For www I have a 301 to marcia.ml:

>>> https://www.marcia.ml

> --------------------------------------------
> 301 Moved Permanently
> --------------------------------------------

Status:	301 Moved Permanently
Code:	301
Date:	Tue, 10 Jul 2018 10:40:33 GMT
Connection:	close
Cache-Control:	max-age=3600
Expires:	Tue, 10 Jul 2018 11:40:33 GMT
Location:	https://marcia.ml
Strict-Transport-Security:	max-age=0; includeSubDomains
Expect-CT:	max-age=604800, report-uri="https://report-uri.cloudflare.com/cdn-cgi/beacon/expect-ct"
Server:	cloudflare
CF-RAY:	438269adfee134e2-LHR


>>> https://marcia.ml

> --------------------------------------------
> 200 OK
> --------------------------------------------

• 2. For hello.marcia.ml, there's no redirect:

>>> https://hello.marcia.ml

> --------------------------------------------
> 200 OK
> --------------------------------------------

But in Cloudflare I did the same as I did for www:

@marcia maybe that's Cloudflare's special treatment of www subdomains.

@axil aha! So, Cloudflare has this setting called "page rules" where we can set up redirects

It looks like it creates the 301 redirect automatically for www. The only thing we need in this case is the CNAME pointing the subdomain to the main domain (in my example, www => CNAME => marcia.ml). I created a similar rule for hello.marcia.ml and the redirect does work now:

Cloudflare allows us to have up to 3 page rules for free. :)

We have https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ce/issues/43543 to solve the www subdomain problem for everyone.

We can't reliably detect whether something is a "root domain" or a "subdomain", they aren't really categories. Consider, for example, the www.me.uk domain

mentioned in commit 161bf13e

mentioned in merge request !21259 (merged)

I think there's still an issue with the wording.

First, I don't think any of the scenarios mentioned would inhibit using a mail server, as mail uses MX records to discover the mail server, not CNAME or A records. I could be wrong, but none of the pages stuff would affect a mail server.

Second, for a root domain, using a CNAME isn't generally supported. Creating an A record pointing at 35.185.44.232 is the only way to go.

I don't see how this would work with anything but a group page, since the host would always just be the root domain.

For user or project pages, you need to create a subdomain with a CNAME pointing at the group page DNS name.

Anyway, I think the instructions need to be refactored a bit to reflect how to map various DNS scenarios to GitLab pages.

Oh, also there's a typo: "NOTE: Note: Note that if you use your root domain for your GitLab Pages..."

mentioned in issue #59765 (closed)

Hi @marcia,

First of all, thank you for raising an issue to help improve the GitLab product. We're sorry about this, but this particular issue has gone unnoticed for quite some time.

We're posting this message because this issue meets the following criteria:

• No activity in the past 6 months (since 2018-09-28T17:59:01.643Z)
• No milestone (unscheduled)

We'd like to ask you to help us out and determine how we should act on this issue.

If this issue is reporting a bug, please can you attempt to reproduce on the latest version of GitLab or GitLab.com, to help us to understand whether the bug still needs our attention.

If this issue is proposing a new feature, please can you verify whether the feature proposal is still relevant.

Please mention the Triage team (@gitlab-org/triage) for help with applying labels

Thanks for your help!

---

You are welcome to help improve this comment.

added auto updated awaiting feedback labels

We got this long ago. Closing.

closed

added devopspackage docs-only labels

mentioned in merge request !30188 (closed)

mentioned in issue #64655 (closed)