Suggest HN: Build a service to automatically setup CName or A-records | Hacker News Reader

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

5 pointspetenixey7 comments

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.

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.

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.

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.

Thoughts?

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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]

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

http://iwantmyname.com/ ?

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